The Serpent Incident
by CrystalOfEllinon
Summary: Yeah...this may be one of the nerdiest crossovers ever written. Rated M to be on the safe side, because, well, I'm writing it.
1. Chapter 1

I have...no real explaination for this. Except for one word; Twitter. Yeah. You guys. It's your fault.

Warning; extreme nerdiness ahead. For true nerds, a game; count the episode references! (Don't make this a drinking game, or you'll die of alcohol poisoning.)

I don't own Doctor Who or G.I. Joe. I don't make any money from this. I also don't own the Fearless Master; Karama 9 claims that honor. I just borrow him on occasion for his extreme awesomeness.

* * *

"Really, what is it with you people and _guns?" _

He could, Snake Eyes thought, at least have the common sense to look frightened. Faced with Snake Eye's own six feet of masked black death, several extremely confused but highly armed and dangerous Joes who'd been lingering over the last remnants of their supper in the cafeteria, and last but not least the individual known to terrorist cells worldwide as the "red haired she-demon", the strange suited, trench coat wearing, sneaker-clad man with curiously old eyes and gravity-defying hair had scarcely _blinked_.

What he had done was _talk._ Snake Eyes had thought Tommy could chatter, but his sword brother had _nothing _on the odd stranger currently standing in the middle of a ring of increasingly confused Joes.

"Blimey." The stranger was looking Snake Eyes up and down. "The grenades are a bit much, don't you think? Not really a fan of the whole 'masked avatar of death' thing, but I _do _like the black. Very slimming, black. I say, could you possibly not point that gun at my face? It's terribly hard to get acquainted when people are pointing guns at you."

Shana, who had moments ago been lingering over the last crumbs of her French silk pie, currently had her sidearm leveled at the stranger's skull."Snake." Her voice was still calm, despite the situation. "Snake, why is there an antique police box parked where my plate was forty seconds ago?"

"Oh dear…Americans…no shooting! Guns down please! I would definitely not like to be shot!" A pause. "_Antique?"_

"Shut up." Shana's threat would have made half a squadron of vipers back up. The strange man just raised an eyebrow.

"You're waving around 1980's military hardware and you're calling my TARDIS an _antique?_ Speaking of the military hardware, I would vastly appreciate you not pointing it at me._"_

"I said _shut up. _This is Destro's doing. This has to be Destro's doing. He finally got that teleport working, did he?" Shana scowled at the stranger. "That means he knows where the Pit is. Oh, this is bad…someone best get General Hawk."

"On it." Dusty took off like a shot, fumbling for his communicator.

"_Teleport?" _The stranger sputtered indignantly. "A t_eleport? _The TARDIS? Good god, I was right about you last incarnation; stupid thick apes. Will you _put the guns down? _I'm unarmed." A pause. "Well, except for the sonic, but that's harmless. Mostly. Well. Unless you're a robot."

"What?" Shana's eyebrows had shot for her hairline. She grabbed for her communicator. "General Hawk?"

"Dusty told me. I'm on my way. What's the situation?" Hawk's voice sounded tinny over the communicator.

"I think Destro's been playing with that blasted machine again, sir. We've got one intruder, who claims to be unarmed. He…he parked a big blue box in the middle of the cafeteria, sir. And now he's asking _when _he is."

"Secure him and the box. I'm scrambling a team; we'll be at your location in two minutes."

"Wait, who's Destro?" The strange man sounded curious now. "What machine? Oi…you two…" He reached for his jacket pocket, and then paused as finger tightened on triggers. "It's _glasses._ Honestly, _Americans. _You think there's no problem that can't be solved by shooting it."

"When that solution stops working, I'll stop using it." Shana lowered her gun. "Keep him covered. I'll pat him down."

One quick search later turned up one odd-looking blue-tipped metal cylinder from his inner jacket pocket ("Be _careful _with that!") one pair of eyeglasses, a magnifying glass, several paperclips, a jeweler's eyepiece, a pair of pliers, a stethoscope, a length of string ("I forgot about that! Comes in handy, string.") and half a dozen butterscotch candies. Several attempts to open the door of the odd blue box had met with abject failure, including the application of Snake Eye's shoulder at high speed. He rubbed the bruise and eyed the blue box suspiciously.

The stranger was tied to one of the cafeteria chairs; makeshift bindings had been fashioned from Recondo's belt. Shana was currently trying to extract the stranger's name, with fairly dismal results.

"One more time." Shana was pinching the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. "What's your name, where are you from, and what are you doing here?"

"I told you. I'm The Doctor." The man rolled his shoulders, attempting to wriggle into a more comfortable position. "I'm…not from here. And there was a temporal storm in the Time Vortex. I was aiming for England in 1067-always wanted to meet William- but the TARDIS dropped out of the vortex when it got rocky. Standard emergency procedure; set down in the closest safe spot. Though," he glared at the blue box. "She and I seem to have different ideas of the concept _safe._ Always with the guns. You _always _take me someplace where people point guns at me."

The blue box remained silent.

"A doctor of _what?" _Shana folded her arms.

"Oh, you know. This and that. Temporal physics. Engineering. Chemistry. Genetic engineering. Recreational math. Cheese making. And I suppose I've just about earned an honorary doctorate in Earth and Humanity Studies by this point. You can call me The Doctor. And if you don't mind, when exactly am I? I'm guessing nineteen eighties…that metallic tang to the air, you know…but when _exactly _am I?"

"The Doctor? That's not a _name._ That can't be your real name."

"Well, no. But it'll do. Used it for a long time now, and I've grown quite attached to it. And you haven't answered my question yet."

"What?"

"_When _am I? Exactly what date is it?"

Shana blinked. "May seventeenth. 1988."

"Right. Now, could I _please _have my glasses?"

No one moved. The stranger sighed. "Rassilon save me …they're not a _weapon. _They're just _glasses._ For _seeing. _And I thought Sontarans were a suspicious lot._"_

A greenshirt eyed Shana. She nodded permission, and the greenie edged forward, picked up the glasses, and gingerly slid them into place on the end of the stranger's nose.

"Ah, that's _much _better." The stranger sounded…cheerful? "Thank you. Now, let's see here…oh, yes, I thought so. Oh, that's _brilliant!"_

The cafeteria door flew open. What looked like about half the Joe team boiled through, armed to the teeth.

"Who the hell is he?" General Hawk, tac-vest clad and M-16 toting, shouldered his way through the ring of people around the crazy man and the blue box. "How the _hell _did you get in here?"

"Hello!" The Doctor said cheerfully. "Are you in charge here? You look like you're in charge here. Brilliant. We can get this misunderstanding all sorted out. I'm the Doctor. I'd shake hands, but, you know, tied up. As I already told this lady…I'd say nice, but, well, gun…temporal storm, emergency landing in a safe zone, but of course the TARDIS's version of a safe zone always ends up involving people trying to kill me. And now, a question; when was it that you two last time traveled?" He swiveled to eye Snake and Shana.

There was a long, frozen moment where no one moved.

"No one knows about that." Hawk's voice was steel. "That is beyond classified. Officially, it _never happened._"

"And then, you keep going on about this _Destro._" The Doctor continued, utterly ignoring Hawk. "You heard me ask _when _I was, and your first thought was of this _Destro. _And then I go on about temporal streams and the time vortex and you ask me about my name. Skipped right over the whole disbelief, denial, and self-delusion step. And that tells me that you lot have some experience with time travel. And then you were kind enough to give me my glasses, and now I can see that you two," A nod at Snake and Shana, "have residual vortex energy clinging to you. I _knew _it already, of course, but it helps to _see _it. And if you've been exposed to the time vortex…well, that means that you're time travelers." A grin. "Only we're about two and a half thousand years too early for humans to develop time travel. Which tells me that there's either someone very clever about, or someone's here who shouldn't be. And if I was clever-and I am very, very clever-I'd think that this Destro is either a _very_ clever man, or someone who definitely should not be here."

"Like you." Hawk's voice was flat.

"No! Not like me!" A pause. "Well, a _bit_ like me. But I'm on the _right _side! This was an honest mistake!" He tugged at the belt, hopefully. "Now, about this whole tied up thing…"

"Not just yet. We've got questions. Who are you working for?"

"No one. I'm not good at following instructions, really." A shrug.

"You're not working for Cobra Commander, or Destro, or any enemy of the United States of America?"

"No! Good god, no! _Cobra Commander?_ And you have trouble with _my _name? Now, how about letting me free?" The Doctor grinned winningly, a look that could convince anyone to believe him...

*Twenty-five minutes later*

"What's in god's name is he doing now?"

Hawk drummed his fingers against the table and didn't answer Breaker's question. On the other side of the one-way glass, the odd stranger who'd turned up in the middle of the cafeteria in a blue police box was…licking the glass?

"High impact plastic, laminated with transparent ceramic and glass. Stop just about anything short of a missile, that." The Doctor's voice crackled over the speaker system. An experimental tap. " . Don't want anyone breaking out of this cell, hmm? My, my. You lot are a bit paranoid, you know? Of course, things _are _trying to melt your planet to slag once a month or so, so maybe you've got reason."

"He's crazy." Breaker's voice was flat. "Completely crazy…did he figure out what was in the glass by _licking _it?"

"I'm not sure about his sanity." Hawk didn't look away from the strange man, who was now standing on a chair to examine the video camera in the corner of his cell. "But he walked right into one of the United States' most secret, most secure facilities, and he knows about time travel."

"_Digital!"_ The Doctor sounded delighted. "In 1988? _Brilliant! _Oh, that's a work of _art! _Just gorgeous! Oh, a very clever person made you, my little beauty."

Breaker's eyebrows went up. "And he does have an excellent eye for talent."

The door behind them opened; Hawk turned. Psyche-Out, Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes, and Beach Head trooped in, trailed by a dozen greenshirts.

"What's he doing?" Psyche-Out craned his neck to look around Hawk.

"Inflating Breaker's ego by another few points. Kenneth, find out what the hell is going on. Tommy, you're the lie detector. Snake, Beach, you're standing behind them and looking intimidating…Storm?"

Tommy had his head tilted slightly, and was frowning. "That can't be." He murmured the words under his breath. "That _can't _be."

"What can't be…_STORM!" _

Tommy, for once, ignored Hawk. He slammed a hand down on the 'open comm' button. "You. Doctor. Whatever your name is. _What are you?"_

"Pardon?" The Doctor hopped down off the chair.

"_What are you?"_

"Storm Shadow!" Hawk bit out the words. "What in god's name are you doing? _Stand down!"_

"He's not human, General." Tommy didn't move, didn't take his eyes off the strange Doctor. "He's got two heartbeats. He's got two _hearts._"

Other men might have questioned this. Other men might have said something dismissive. But General Clayton Abernathy was not most men. General Clayton Abernathy knew his men and women, and there were a few things that he knew to be immutable truths; he knew that the Joe team was the best. He knew that the Joe team had his back and he had theirs. He knew that he was better off not knowing why Beach found it necessary to assist Covergirl with after-hours maintenance on the Humvees. He knew that he would really like to find himself in a cage fight against the Jugglers. He knew that Snake Eyes was fully capable of invading a country single-handedly. And he knew that Storm Shadow's ears were _always _right.

"Beach, get Doc." He said quietly. Beach saluted and vanished.

Tommy hadn't moved. "You aren't human. _What are you? _You have two hearts. _Two hearts. _I can _hear _them. And they're beating far too slowly for a human, unless that human has spent years training to control their heartbeat."

The man in the cell went very still, and turned to eye the glass. "You can hear them? Through three inches of bulletproof glass? I could just as well ask you the same question; who are _you?"_

"Don't answer any questions." Psyche-Out ordered. He edged in beside Tommy. "Now, I hear that you think you're an alien."

"No _thinking _about it, really." The Doctor rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. "I'm pretty definitely an alien."

"And yet you look human."

"Yeah? Well to _me, _you look Time Lord. We were around before your species even figured out opposable thumbs."

"Time Lord…is that what species you are, then?" Psyche-Out was scribbling frantically.

"Last time I checked. Unless I got into the Chameleon Arch again, but if that had happened I wouldn't remember _being_ a Time Lord."

"My god." Psyche-Out absently ran a hand through his hair. "_American Psychological Journal, _here I come…And so what are you doing on Earth?"

"Oh, you know. This and that. Knocking about, looking for fun. Occasionally saving the world. Quite fond of the place, hate to see it damaged."

"Saving the world from what?"

The Doctor heaved a long-suffering sigh. "It might be quicker to list what I _haven't _saved it from, really."

"So, you're referring to other aliens?"

"Yup." The Doctor popped the 'p'.

"And what do other aliens want with Earth?"

"In order? To turn your planet into their new hive. To enslave you. To exterminate you. To steal your water. To burn the planet to slag as part of a complicated retirement plan. To turn your obese people into their next generation of children…to be fair, that one _did _work as a diet plan…"

Psyche-Out's eyes were bugging slightly. He'd switched to using shorthand to keep up with the Doctor. "Obese people into alien children."

"Well, their fat. Wouldn't have been so bad if they _stuck _to using the fat. But I forget; that won't happen for you for, oh, a couple of decades yet. Advice: avoid miracle diet pills."

The door crashed open again. Doc entered at a run, a bag of hastily packed equipment under his arm. Beach reappeared at a slightly more sedate pace a few steps behind.

"General!" Doc snapped of a salute, but his attention was focused on the strange Doctor. "Beach is telling me very strange things, sir."

"It's been a very strange day." Hawk straightened his tac vest. "Doc, Kenneth…find out who and _what _he is."

Psyche-Out flipped the page in his notebook. "I'll tell you one thing he is; both schizophrenic and suffering from intense delusions, or really _is _an alien. Either way, he's got one hell of an imagination."

"He's not lying." Tommy was staring at The Doctor. "Whatever else he is, he's not lying."

"Right. Carl, get in there. You're the Doctor here. Tell me if he's human." Hawk turned to the rest of the group. "Greenshirts; stay out here. If he tries to overpower us and make a run for it, shoot him. Beach, Snake, Storm…your jobs haven't changed. Come on."

The Doctor looked up when the door to his cell opened. "Hello!" He held out a hand to Doc. "I'm the Doctor."

"Call me Doc." Doc pulled a stethoscope out of his bag. "Have a seat and hold still."

"No need to go poking about at me..." The Doctor spotted Tommy and Beach. "Blimey, you two too? How many of you have been mucking about with time travel, anyway?" He squinted at Tommy. "You look familiar…"

"Snake Eyes? Could you hold him still?"

"Hey! HEY!" The Doctor struggled as Snake Eyes obediently slid behind him and wrapped him into a standing lock. "Ow! Easy on the shoulders, mate! Oi! Cold!"

"Sorry." Doc's eyes went wide. "Sweet mother of god…Storm was right…he's got two pulses…" he looked down at his watch and appeared to be counting under his breath. "Thirteen beats per minute? How are you not _dead?_

"Time Lord. Binary vascular system. Much more efficient than a human's."

Doc dug an infrared thermometer out of his bag without looking. "Body temperature…fifty nine? That's _not possible._ Someone that cool should be _dead._"

"Yeah…we also maintain a lower core body temperature. Trade-off, you know? Too difficult to maintain a high core temperature and, to be quite frank, a downright enormous brain. We'd spend all our waking time eating. Comes in handy sometimes; Time Lords don't mind cold as much as you do. Or heat, for that matter. You convinced yet? Hey! Big scary man in black! Fancy letting me go yet? Binary vascular system and I'm _still _losing circulation in my arms."

"You can let him go, Snake." Doc rummaged through his bag again.

Snake Eyes maneuvered the smaller man into the chair, and did so. He kept hovering, though, arms crossed.

"Ah, that's better." The Doctor rolled his shoulders. "And again with the names! Snake Eyes! Destro! Cobra Commander! And you lot have a problem with The Doctor! I like yours, though." This was addressed to Doc. "Doc. I like that."

Hawk could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. "Let me get this straight. You're an alien. An alien who looks human...sorry. An alien _we_ look like…With a binary vascular system, which is why I've got a seriously unnerved ninja and medical doctor."

"Yep." The Doctor popped the 'p' again. Hawk gritted his teeth; that was going to get annoying. A pause, and the odd man's eyebrows rose. "Wait…ninja?"

"The police box I've got on lockdown is a spaceship."

"Also a time machine. You mentioned ninja."

"Of course. Also a time machine. That can travel anywhere in time and space. Somehow jammed into a box that's about six feet square."

"Yeah, about that…appearances deceiving and all that. You have a ninja. What did you call the ninja?"

"And, for some reason, despite the fact that you're an alien, you have a British accent."

"I'm quite fond of England. Is there something wrong with England? What was the ninja's name?"

Hawk blinked. "What?"

"The ninja. What's his name?" The Doctor asked patiently.

"Which one of them?" Hawk gestured to Snake and Storm. "You'll have to be a bit more specific."

The Doctor craned his neck to eye Snake. "Well, that'll explain the walking arsenal over there. You ought to meet an old friend of mine. Called him The Brigadier. You two would get along splendidly. You could compare grenades. What was I saying? Right! Ninja! You've got more than one of them about? Blimey, I'd hate to see the repair bills…the other one! The one I unnerve!"

"I'll tell you if you tell me where you're from."

"Fine, fine. Planet Gallifrey, in the constellation Kaster Borous. Two hundred and fifty million light years away from your little solar system and your lovely little planet, in what Earth astronomers call the Centaurus supercluster. The galaxy has a name, but there's no chance you could pronounce more than the first two syllables."

There were a few moments of slightly shell-shocked silence. Hawk gathered himself first. "Right. Well then. Storm. Storm Shadow."

The Doctor slapped a hand against his forehead. "Of COURSE! I'm getting slow in my old age. Storm Shadow! STORM SHADOW! Arashikage! The ear that sees! _That's _how he could hear! I do wonder how Tomisaburo is doing…he'd be in his sixties by now, last time I saw him he made a good try at drinking me under the table. Of course, I metabolize alcohol more efficiently than humans, but he did make a good go of it. I had to teach him how to make a proper banana daiquiri. I think I ended up snogging one of his cousins before the end of the night." A pause, and the Doctor scratched his head, managing to spike his hair up still further. "Y'know, I've never seen anyone cut a cyberman's head off with a sword before. Nine hundred years, and he's still the only one I've ever seen manage it. Imagine! Taking on six cybermen with nothing but a sword and a mad glint in your eyes! And _winning!_ Brilliant! Of course, he was utterly mad, but then, he _was _a ninja. His wife was a right little fox too…I still hold that she fancied me…"

None of them were sure exactly when Storm Shadow moved. One moment he was standing by the door, and the next he had The Doctor by the lapel of his coat, and was dragging him upright.

Hawk sighed. That had actually taken several seconds longer than he'd expected.

"You know the Arashikage?" Tommy hissed.

"Oi! Easy on the coat! I love this coat." The Doctor eyed Tommy. "Janis Joplin gave me this coat." He looked Tommy over again. "Oh! God, I'm thick! Brilliant! Can't believe I didn't recognize you, you're his spitting image. You'd be his son, then? Blimey, last time I saw you you were a tiny bit of a thing. Spit up on me once. How are your mother and father doing, then? I think I still owe your father five quid."

"They're dead." Tommy's voice was flat.

A long pause. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. They both died of natural causes. You knew them, then?"

"Ran into them once." The Doctor smiled and nodded as if at a fond memory. "He was hired to kill a drug kingpin who was actually an alien trying to distribute mind control substances to humans and deport them off planet as slaves. While escaping, he managed to accidentally teleport himself onto the Cyberman ship that was dropping by to pick up some human slaves to convert. Which was where he met me. Long story short, we blew up the Cyberman ship, I managed to fix the teleport enough to make it back to Earth just before the big boom, he asked me if I'd like to come over to the compound for dinner, we got drunk…and that's not easy for me, but we drank a _lot…_ and I woke up on the roof. Never did find my tie."

The Joes digested that in silence for several seconds.

"The crazy man in the blue box." Tommy let go of the Doctor and took a step back. "He told me stories, when I was little…"

"They weren't stories."

"Is anyone else disturbed by the notion of a ninja thinking someone is crazy?" Breaker had sidled into the room and was examining his precious camera to make sure The Doctor hadn't damaged it with his fiddling. "And equal parts disturbed and amused by the mental picture of His Stabbiness over there spitting up all over the crazy alien man_?_"

"You gotta point there." Beach tilted his head. "Poor little ninja tummy couldn't handle his dinner, huh?" A positively evil grin spread under the balaclava.

"Well, he was all of three months old. It took the TARDIS two dry-cleaning cycles to get the stain out." The Doctor stroked his coat affectionately. "I love this coat."

"General?"

"No injuring anyone, Storm."

A sigh. "Yessir."

Hawk's head twinged again as what had just been said caught up with synapses that were already buzzing. "And a dry cleaner. There is also a dry cleaner in the spaceship time machine police box."

"I told you; appearances can be deceiving." The Doctor smiled.

"Schizophrenia and delusions." Psyche-Out cut in at last, looking up from his notebook. "That's normally what I'd say. Except that Carl is still having a mild stroke, and there's still a police box under heavy guard down in storage. I'll tell you this though, General. He believes utterly what he's saying. He's not having us on. Carl? You still with us?"

Doc hadn't stopped muttering wildly into a tiny voice recorder since first touching a stethoscope to The Doctor's chest five minutes ago.

Hawk sighed and pulled up the other chair in the room. "Okay. Right. So, we've got an alien time traveler on our hands. Who flies a blue police box, which my best men have _still _been unable to get into, despite using any and all methods at their disposal. Up to and including plastic explosives, which didn't noticeably scratch the paint."

"It's not _really _a police box. Chameleon circuit got stuck like that about six hundred years back. I haven't fixed it because I've grown rather fond of it. And you won't get in. Nothing can get into that box. Greater armies than yours have tried and failed to breach the hull of a TARDIS."

"But you can."

"Of course I can. I've got the key."

"We searched you." Hawk was definitely getting a headache now. "You didn't have a key."

"Not that you found, no." The Doctor grinned. "And you won't. But, General, I'm not your enemy. Now, give me my sonic screwdriver back-along with those butterscotches, I like butterscotch-take me to the TARDIS, and I'll be on my way."

"There's a problem with that." Hawk steepled his fingers. "You're in a base that does not exist. Do you understand what that means?"

"This is hardly the first military base that doesn't exist that I've been in. Haven't you heard of them?"

Hawk blinked. "No."

"Exactly."

"And yet, you're an unknown, an intruder and a potential security threat." Hawk moved to stand. "I can't let you go."

There was a moment of silence, and then the Doctor caught Hawk's eyes. _Such old eyes. _Hawk thought. _A young face-younger than mine-but such old eyes…_

"General." The Doctor's voice had lost its cheerful edge. "I'm going to give you one warning. Just one. There is no security system on this planet-or any other, for that matter-that can stop me if I choose to leave. No one who could. And I'm going to repeat myself; _I am not your enemy._ Indeed, I believe I could help you. But you're going to have to trust me."

"Help us?" Hawk raised an eyebrow. "With what?"

"You mentioned a man named Destro. You mentioned a machine, something that can travel in time. And seeing as you're American military and very concerned about this man, I'm guessing that Destro has done bad things, things that make him a big enough threat to attract your attention. And a bad man with a time machine…well, he could get up to all _sorts_ of trouble, couldn't he?"

"We've stopped him before."

"But could you again? You see, time isn't fixed…well, some bits are…but mostly it's changeable. Time can be re-written. What if it was re-written to exclude you?"

"It can't be." Beach spoke up suddenly. "Destro said weird shit kept happening to any operatives he sent back to kill us."

"You see? I can help you. _Will_ help you." The Doctor looked Beach over again. "What time did you go to? Because I rather feel sorry for it."

"Wait. Back up." Psyche-Out was still scribbling frantically on his notepad. "You said _will _help us. Are you saying that _you're _what happened to the operatives Destro sent back in time to kill us?"

"Yes and no. Not yet for me. That's still in my future. But when odd things happen with time…well." A grin. "It's usually me."

Hawk massaged his temples. "All of this raises one very big question; why, in the name of God, should we believe a single word of any of this? And why _you?_ Why would you do any of this?"

"Because I'm the Doctor." The Doctor didn't blink or look away from Hawk's laser-sharp glare. "I've saved this planet a thousand times from forces you don't even know exist. This planet still spins around its sun and the people on it still live because of me. You worry about threats to your country, General. I worry about threats to your planet, your species, and reality itself. And because I will never, so long as my hearts beat, let this world come to harm."

Hawk nodded slowly. "Prove it."

The Doctor grinned.


	2. Chapter 2

*Seventeen minutes later*

Seeing a police box straight out of 1955 era London surrounded by armed men was, to put it mildly, strange. Adding to the surreality of the whole situation was the wild-haired, suited Doctor, calmly ambling past the gun-toting Joes as if an eclectic mix of armed-to-the-teeth black ops soldiers was an average Tuesday occurrence. He didn't even blink twice when faced with Gung Ho and Spirit, who would have given most battle-hardened military commanders an aneurism based on clothing choice alone.

The Doctor reached into his trouser pocket, and produced…nothing. Or…wait…Hawk blinked; for the briefest moment, he'd thought he saw a glitter of metal. It was just hard to focus on. His vision kept wanting to slide to one side, like didn't want to be seen…

"Perception filter." The Doctor had noticed Hawk squinting at what was presumably the key to the strange blue box. "Makes things hard to see, unless you know what to look for."

Hawk could almost _feel _both the ninja, and Beach Head, crane their necks in interest behind him.

"Aren't you afraid that I could just take it now?" Hawk nodded at the key. "I can't see it, but I bet I could feel it. You seem rather casual with your time machine."

All that got was a shrug. "You won't. You're an honorable man. And even if you did overpower me and take the key, you couldn't fly it."

"I have the best pilots in the world on my team."

"Wouldn't matter." The Doctor patted the blue box affectionately. "On Gallifrey, Time Lords trained for years to become TARDIS pilots. No one else in the universe can fly one, and god knows they've tried. I've only ever seen one human manage to fly one, and she…" He trailed off abruptly, and Hawk caught the briefest flash of pain cross that old/young face. He filed that away; _he's lost someone, and she meant a great deal to him. _"Anyway, the TARDIS herself showed her how to fly her, and that was something of an extraordinary situation. It won't happen again. You have to be able to _feel _time, and humans can't." The Doctor twirled the oddly elusive key on the end of its chain. "Well. Shall we? And not the whole lot of you, please. The old girl hasn't had more than a few of passengers for, oh, six hundred years. She might get nervous."

"Weird. I can't keep looking at it. Perception filter?" Beach was attempting to focus on the key, and sounded intrigued. "Don't suppose that comes in person-size?"

The Doctor ignored this, and unlocked the door of the phone box. Hawk laid a hand on the blue wood; it seemed utterly ordinary. Wood, blue paint, glass.

The door swung inwards. Hawk glanced at the sign on the front of the…what had the Doctor called it? TARDIS, yes, TARDIS…which read "pull to open". Giving a mental shrug, he stepped inside the blue box.

He stopped.

He took a step back and examined the exterior of the box again. Walked around it. Stepped back through the door.

Hawk was a highly intelligent man. Over the course of a long and illustrious career in the armed forces, he'd done and seen enough that it took a great deal to faze him any longer. He understood people, and was good with them. He was brilliant at getting things accomplished and managing people, sometimes without them knowing they'd been managed. There were certain bureaucrats in Washington DC who had nightmares about him; Hawk's usual approach to having red tape thrown up in front of him was to cluster bomb the area until the red tape was nothing but smoke particles floating in the air. He was in charge of a team of America's best and brightest loony bin escapees, and he regularly had to deal with snake-based world domination schemes. It took a _lot _to make General Clayton Abernathy blink.

All of this put the next words to leave his mouth somewhat in perspective.

"It's…bigger on the inside." He managed.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." The Doctor was grinning madly, quite obviously enjoying the reaction.

"Bigger on the inside" barely began to cover things. The inside of the TARDIS…well, the control console in the middle of the room was about the size of the blue box on the outside, and the room itself was a wide round space, support beams of what appeared to be coral arching up towards the ceiling. Passages opened off of the control room, indicating that the whole of the ship was far larger still.

"Okay. I believe you now." Hawk ran a hand over one of the support columns. "I like the décor. Is it really organic, or just styled to look that way? You were talking about it as a _she, _and like she was sentient. She's more than just a ship, isn't she?"

The Doctor's eyebrows rose. "That was…quick. No hyperventilating? No 'Oh bloody hell, he's really an alien, I'm on an alien spaceship?" He examined Hawk for a moment. "You're a very clever man, aren't you? Far more clever than you let on."

Hawk allowed himself a small smile. "This is hardly the first utterly crazy thing I've ever seen. If my autobiography was ever published…which it won't be, for national security purposes…most people wouldn't believe the half of it anyways."

He could almost _see_ the Doctor's opinion of him rising several notches. He allowed his grin to widen just a tiny bit.

"The _fuck?"_

Ah. Beach had just encountered the 'bigger on the inside' issue, then.

"Hawk? I think he wasn't bullshitting us."

"I think you would be correct, Beach." Hawk turned; Beach Head was standing in the doorway, eyes wide, staring at the room…no, _ship…_that this strange alien who looked so human called a TARDIS.

"So…you're an alien." Beach edged warily inside. "And this is a spaceship. An honest to-god alien." A pause. "Well, fuck me running."

"And THERE it is!" The Doctor grinned happily. "One hundred percent alien. And don't forget time machine."

"Does it have lasers?"

The Doctor blinked. "What? _What? _No! No, it doesn't have lasers! This isn't a battle TARDIS. What use would I have for laser cannons anyway?"

Beach blinked, as if he didn't quite understand this statement. "Whut kind of crap spaceship ain't got no laser cannons?"

"The kind intended for _scientific research!" _The Doctor seemed to be getting agitated. "Rassilon save me…_soldiers!_ Always guns this and guns that and oh, here's a brand new form of life, why don't we just _shoot it?_" He huffed.

"Oh good gawd, he sounds like Lifeline." Beach sighed. "'cept I think Lifeline is in better shape than this one. You ever hear of a 'push up?' I've seen six year old girls with bigger arms than you, skinny."

"Beach, stop antagonizing the alien." Hawk kept his voice level. "Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes…don't _start_ antagonizing the alien." This was directed at the pair of men who had been standing directly behind Beach Head, and who were now gaping in naked astonishment at the inside of the TARDIS. "Flint, same goes for you. Everyone else can just stay outside for the time being. I don't need sixty soldiers running wild all over an alien spacecraft. At least until we know more about it."

"Yessir." Beach didn't quite sigh, but managed to convey the _sense _of sighing, right through the balaclava. Hawk, impressed, made a mental note to put in for a raise for the sergeant major at some point in the near future. Behind him, Snake Eyes was gingerly prodding the coral support beams. Storm Shadow was still standing in the door, looking outside, then inside, then outside again. Flint looked downright _reverential. _

"How big is it, all together?" Hawk nodded at the passages opening off the control room.

"Counting the bedrooms, the kitchen, the closets, the swimming pool, the storage bays, and the library?" The Doctor grinned. "No idea. The old girl has rooms and passages hidden away that even I don't know about."

Flint's head snapped around. "_Library?"_

The Doctor brightened, obviously pleased. "Of course! It's not The Library, but then I don't have quite _that _much room. Still, I'm a bit proud of it. Twelve thousand and seventeen systems are represented, including forty-two thousand separate worlds. Got the authors to sign a good deal of them."

"The Library_?"_

The Doctor grinned madly, looking rather like an overcaffinated, overgrown child who'd just found a wonderful new toy. "Biggest library in the universe! Covers an entire planet! Contains every book that has ever been written! Isn't that just _brilliant? _I'm nine hundred and four years old, and even I've barely read a fraction of them…and not for lack of trying, and mind you, when it was first published I finished _Moby Dick _in three and a half minutes. Time Lord brain, you know. Trained myself to speed-read. Came in handy when cramming for exams at The Academy."

Hawk didn't think the alien had taken a single breath during that entire digression.

"There's a library that covers an _entire planet?"_

"Yep." Again, the pop on the 'P'. Hawk gritted his teeth.

"_Where?" _Flint looked like a child who'd just seen a downright huge stack of presents under the Christmas tree. "Are there translation keys? Does alien literature share any similarities with Earth literature? Where does Keats rate compared to alien poets?"

The Doctor bounced happily on the balls of his feet. "Finally, someone who _thinks!_ Do you have any idea how many companions I've had who wouldn't know Keats from the Fifth Duke of New New York?"

Flint wrinkled his forehead. "Who? What"

"Thought he was a poet. Self-published. Downright rubbish, all of it. And more properly, it'd be called New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York, since it's the fifteenth city named after New York, but that takes _way _too long to say."

"Ah." Flint nodded as if this made perfect sense.

"Right then. So, where do you want to go?" The Doctor seemed to have bounced back to his earlier cheerful-to-the-point-of-maniac mood.

Actually, that slightly-manic energy reminded Hawk slightly uncomfortably of Storm Shadow in a really good mood. Usually, seeing that sort of grin on Tommy's face led to incident reports; Hawk had learned to regard that sort of look with caution.

"Pardon?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Where do you want to go? Or _when _do you want to go? Or both?" The Doctor started fiddling with the controls, jumping from one to the next so fast that Hawk wondered how he knew what the hell he was doing. "The beginning of your solar system? I can't do the end, been there already and I can't cross my own time stream. Gets messy really quickly. Horsehead nebula? It's lovely, really a great spot for a date. The American Revolution? You seem like the type who'd like to meet old Georgie boy. Anywhere, anywhen. Just say the word!"

"_Now?"_

"Why not?"

"Because I have several hundred men and women out there, counting the support staff, who depend on me to lead them. I can't just go gallivanting off."

"I mentioned that this is a time machine, right?"

"You did. And how precise, exactly, is this time machine?" Hawk raised his eybrow again. "Could you _promise, _beyond a doubt, that you could get us back exactly when and where we left?"

A pause. "Weeeeellll…."

"Exactly."

"Could we go to Fresno?" Tommy cut in abruptly. "Thirty-two years ago. White house with green trim. Big yard out back. With a _really _tall fence."

Everyone in the room turned to look at him. Tommy had an odd expression on his face that Hawk had never seen before.

"Not with you." The Doctor was eying Storm with something like…pity? Regret? "You can't cross your own time stream. It's one of the rules. It causes a paradox that could unravel the universe. I'm sorry." A pause. "When did…"

"Never mind." Storm Shadow just shook his head, but Hawk could see that his shoulders had slumped slightly.

_Thirty two years ago…that would make him just over a year old…and he was born in Fresno._

_ His mother died when he was a toddler, didn't she? Yes, I'm sure she did. He would have been very young. Too young to remember her, really…_

Snake Eyes was clearly thinking the same thing; he was eyeing Tommy with an even more inscrutable expression than normal. Seeing as he was fully masked, this was something of an accomplishment. Or perhaps Hawk had just gotten rather good at deciphering expressions through masks. Both were possible.

But for a good man who'd been through more than one human should ever have to bear… "You say you can't cross your own timeline." Hawk said this aloud. "But what about going back just a little further? Before he existed?"

Tommy went very still.

The Doctor grinned again. "That, I can do."

"If we go anywhere, we'll go there." Hawk spun on his heel and headed for the door. "But we're not going anywhere. Not yet. Not until we have a plan. Beach, escort our visitor out too. I'd rather he not vanish with his remarkable ship quite yet."

"What…_Oi! _I'm coming! I'm coming! Easy on the elbow! Faagh…anyone ever introduce you to a shower? It would do wonders for your people skills."

"Shuttup, skinny."

"Okay, so it _might _take more than a shower."

"I said _shuttup, _skinny. Gawd, he yacks more than you, spook."

"A _lot _more than a shower."

"_Shuttup! _Gawd…Snake Eyes, do you have any duct tape?_"_

"Beach, no gagging him."

"Sir, you ain't no fun sometimes."


	3. Chapter 3

Special thanks to the lovely and brilliant Karama9 for both coming up with the idea for the Fearless Master and letting me steal him occasionally.

* * *

"Thirty Two Years earlier, linear time"

"Six months earlier, Time Lord time"

Sparks were still flying from the control panel he'd slammed one of the robot-things through. The robot still was twitching intermittently, but that was only because of the electricity still running through it; the lights in the eyes had died.

Tomisaburo Arashikage, better known as the Fearless Master, and even _better _known as the Insane Master of the Arashikage, or sometimes simply as "Oh god, he's _here_, he's _here, run where is he for the love of god run shoot him shoot him shoot him faster oh god so much blood oh god oh god they're all dead they're all dead I'm sorry I shouldn't have sold those arms to the Soviets, AAAAHHHHHGGgggghgkkkk…" _was having one of the strangest days of his life.

For one thing, he was pretty certain that he was currently on an alien spaceship, and that he'd just killed several alien robots. At least, if the view of the planet Earth through the window he was currently standing in front of was any indication. It was a beautiful view; he was appreciating it accordingly.

(Behind him, the dead robot-thing was giving off the distinct aroma of hot metal and burning flesh, still twitching in the nest of electrical wiring he'd kicked it into. Bruised his foot doing it, too. He had a pivot side kick that he could go through cinderblock walls with, and he'd left a sizeable dent in the robot's chest. If not for twenty five years of iron body training, he probably would have broken his foot and ankle. As it was, he'd wound up wincing and massaging his heel, and calling the robot some very impolite things.)

He eyed the planet above/below/whatever them, and sighed. He_'_d _known _it was a bad idea to jump into that machine and press that button, but then he'd had twelve of the giant robot-alien-monsters chasing him. (Apparently, killing that first one down on Earth had irritated the rest, and he was now scheduled for 'maximum deletion'.) He'd already seen one of them apparently teleport using the thing and hell, it had seemed like the best way to lead those things away from the city where his wife and child were.

If he got out of this alive, they were _going _to move back to Japan. In the thirty years he'd been alive, he'd never _once_ seen alien robots trying to invade Japan. The compound up in the northern mountains was a _much _safer place for his son to grow up than San Francisco, particularly considering that there would be about forty highly trained ninja agents in the compound at all times. He'd yet to see the enemy that could take on the entire Arashikage clan and walk away in one piece.

But that was _if _he managed to survive his current predicament. The robots had followed him, but he'd gotten enough of a breather to set up for a fight. During the ensuing violence, an electricity-shooting robot arm had gotten knocked right into the machinery that operated the teleport, frying it.

That had, in all probability, been his only way home. But the man known as the Insane Master had not earned his nickname without reason; he was starting to _smile._

"No more of you down there, are there?" He muttered. "Good. Ayame and Tommy are safe, then. I suppose I'll just have to give them a good reason not to come back, won't I?"

He cocked his head suddenly. While his ears weren't as sharp as those of his elder brother, he did have exceptional hearing. And right now he was hearing someone running in his direction, followed by the heavy, regular _thud thud thud thud _of robot feet. Someone wearing…sneakers?

There was a buzzing noise. The door he _knew _he'd just bolted shut across the room (it appeared to be a control bridge of sorts) flew open, and a man shot through, slammed the door again, and pointed an odd little contraption at it. The tip glowed blue, and there was the buzzing noise again. The stranger whirled around, just in time to yelp and struggle as the Fearless Master pounced, easily disarming him and wrapping him up into a chokehold with one hand while rolling the odd blue-tipped cylinder around with the other, examining it curiously.

"MNNGGGGG!" The stranger made an indignant noise. He was a lot stronger than that tall, skinny build should allow; Tomisaburo was having to work to keep him under control.

"Who are you?" The Fearless Master was still eyeing the odd cylinder. "And what's this thing? And why are you still conscious? This is a sleeper hold; you should have passed out twenty seconds ago." He paused, the odd pulsing of the arteries under his grip finally registering. "And do you have _two _heartbeats?"

"NNNNGGGG!"

The Fearless Master loosened his grip.

"Ouch. Thank you. I'm the Doctor." The Doctor massaged his throat. "Who're _you? _And do you _always _say 'hello' by inflicting soft tissue damage?"

"Most of the time, yes." The Fearless Master shrugged. "But then, a lot of the time when I meet new people they try to kill me. Count yourself lucky; that was usually the part where I break their neck, but you didn't look like too much of a threat."

"Thanks." A pause. "I think. That _can _ruin a day." The Doctor sighed. "Every time I try to go on a nice vacation, ten minutes later it's 'oh, let's blow up the universe, oh dear, the Doctor's here, best shoot him while we're at it."

The Fearless Master let the stranger go, intrigued. "See, those kind of situations can usually be solved by inflicting soft tissue damage, in my experience. So, you're here trying to stop these things?"

"Cybermen." The Doctor brushed himself off, straightening his coat. "They're called cybermen. They have human brains in a robot bodies, which is why they were here; buying new stock to 'upgrade.' Yes, yes I am. Could I have my Sonic Screwdriver back?"

"Sonic screwdriver?" The Fearless Master eyed the metal cylinder. "What's it do?"

"It doesn't kill people." The Doctor's voice was flat.

The Fearless Master sighed and handed the item back, disappointed. "So…" He eyed the wild-haired stranger. "Two heartbeats…are you an alien?"

"Yep."

"Thought so. Do you not need to breathe? Or pump blood to your brain? Because that sleeper hold I was using on you should put a man out cold in ten seconds."

"Respiratory bypass system. Almost impossible to asphyxiate a Time Lord. And I have a binary vascular system; two extra carotid arteries, set further back than the primary ones. Sleeper holds won't work."

"Ahhh." The Fearless Master nodded, satisfied. "I _knew _I wasn't slipping. How far back, exactly, and what angle would be best…"

The stranger eyed the Fearless Master. "I am not telling you how to knock out a Time Lord. So…who the bloody hell are you, and what are you doing on a cyberman ship?"

"Most people call me the Insane Master." Tomisaburo extended a hand. "My proper title is the Fearless Master, and my real name is Tomisaburo, but I like Insane Master. I was conducting a hit on a target, but it turns out he was an alien running a slave ring. So I beheaded him, and then I was getting chased by those cybermen things, so I teleported out, lured them after me, and wound up here. Then the teleport got fried, so now I'm going to blow this ship up."

The Doctor mulled that over for a moment, and then gingerly shook the offered hand. "Okay. Ninja?"

"Yes."

"Thought so. The sword, you know. Kind of a give-away. Well, that and the trying to strangle me. Anyway, we'd best start running."

There was a crash of metal against metal from the door the Doctor had entered through. The metal bowed inwards.

The Fearless Master resettled the weapon on his back and eyed the door. He cracked his knuckles. "Why?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Ahh…because there are six cybermen on the other side of that door. If they catch us, they'll kill us. Now, if we go this way, we should be able to get to the main engine room, and if we're lucky there'll be a backup teleportation system. If we lock all the doors between here and there we should be able to buy ourselves at least a few minutes…what are you doing?"

The Fearless Master calmly unsheathed his sword. "I'd advise hiding behind that control panel over there, if I were you."

The look of incredulous disbelief on the Doctor's face was _priceless. _The Fearless Master always enjoyed it when he elicited that sort of look. "You can't fight them! They'll _kill you!"_

The Fearless Master grinned under his mask, a look that would have sent most sane people fleeing in terror. "Oh, but I can. And the last twelve couldn't."

"….._twelve?"_

The Fearless Master slid back into the shadows along the wall, vanishing from view so effectively that the Doctor found himself blinking. The door shuddered under another hit; the next one punched a hole through the steel plating.

"You're _mad!"_ The Doctor dove behind the control panel. "_Mad!"_

The next blow sent the door crashing down. The first cyberman came clumping stolidly through, arm raising to fire at anything that moved….

…the shadows blurred, and the air hissed as a very sharp blade moved through it very, very quickly…

The next few seconds, in the eyes of a Time Lord, seemed to stretch out as if mired in treacle. The head rolled off the first cyberman, the metal body, one leg still raised in the air, toppled...

…and before either head or body hit the floor, the shadows were _moving, _and the strange, crazed man was in amongst the cybermen, not seeming to care that each of them could kill him with a touch, his grin visible right through the mask, looking like he was having the time of his life.

But to kill him, they'd have to touch him, and that didn't seem likely to happen. The man moved like only a truly gifted ninja could; a cyberman reached, only to grasp empty air, and then its head was falling to one side and its body to the other, and the body was crashing into another cyberman, and the strange man was using it as a springboard to launch himself up to where he could get a grip on the piping in the ceiling. In the few moments it took the cybermen to reorient, knives took the eyes out of two of the robots, who started screeching "Compromised! Compromised!" and bumping into each other and the walls.

A white blur launched itself from the ceiling, and landed knife-first on one of the last two cyborgs. He was gone before the creature started to fall, leaving the hilt of a very large knife protruding from an eye; too late, electricity crackled over the cyberman's skin, only to fade fitfully as the thing died.

The last cyberman reached for the ninja, the deadly electrical pulse crackling over the steel of its body…

…and the crazy man sidestepped and drove his sword point-first through the eye socket of the metal head. Electricity crackled along the blade, but the ninja didn't seem affected. He just tugged his weapon free.

_Of course! _The Doctor almost slapped himself in the forehead. _Japanese swords traditionally have wood hilts over the tang, wrapped with rayskin and silk cord…he's insulated from the metal of the sword. Oh, and he must have known it. Clever man…_

Across the room, the Fearless Master casually beheaded the last two blinded cybermen, then examined the edge of his sword as the metal corpses crashed to the floor.

"You see _that!" _He said happily to the room in general. "Onashi steelsmithing, right there. An Onashi sword'll split a bullet fired at the edge. Barely nicked it." He polished the blade of the weapon lovingly with his sleeve and sheathed it. "Now, about the blowing this place up…you said something about a backup teleportation system? Because I'm not afraid of dying, but I would like to see my wife and son again if possible."

The Doctor was staring at him. "Did you just kill six cybermen _with a bloody sword?"_

"And a knife, but they don't really seem to have blood." The Fearless Master bent to retrieve his knife, and said a word that would have made even the most seasoned prostitute in Bangkok blush. "It's _melted!"_

"You just _killed six cybermen with_ a _bloody sword._"

"Is that a problem?" The Fearless Master folded his arms.

"They subjugated _entire systems! _They're incredibly difficult to kill! They're relentless, they never stop, they can kill with a touch…I've seen entire _armies _destroyed by six cybermen!"

The Fearless Master nudged a metal head with the toe of one _tabi. _"I find that most things die if you behead them or at least destroy their brain."

"With _eighteenth century military technology?"_

The Fearless Master just smiled.

"Blimey." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, managing to make it stick up even more. "You really _are _the Insane Master."

"I earned that name." The Fearless Master grinned. "I'm rather fond of it. Now, if you don't mind…I've never killed an enemy spaceship before, and it'd be one hell of a thing to put on my resume. Where's the button to make this thing explode?"

"You know, most humans transported to a cyberman ship would spend considerably more time on the 'oh my, I'm on an alien spacecraft, bloody hell aliens are real, how do I get home?' And the usual response to cybermen soldiers includes a lot more screaming and running." The Doctor pointed towards a corridor. "That way, and it's not really a button, I'm going to rewire the main engine core to feed excess energy into the weapons systems until they overload and go critical."

"Whatever. And I'm a ninja." The Fearless Master took off at a lope. "I make _other _people scream and run. Besides, I've got a wife and a son on that planet, and if any aliens want to attack it, they're going through me first."


	4. Chapter 4

Again, thanks to Karama9 for letting me borrow the FM for purposes of awesomeness. I also used the name she decided on for Jinx's mother, for purposes of fanon solidarity.

Also, you really should not google any of the FM's swear words if you have delicate sensibilities. Just a warning.

* * *

Time Lords were, without a doubt, physically far superior to humans. A binary cardiovascular system and larger lungs delivered oxygenated blood to tissues and organs far more efficiently. A respiratory bypass system meant that a Time Lord could absorb oxygen straight from the air if the main respiratory system was inhibited or overtaxed, and the combined with the larger lung capacity meant that a Time Lord could hold his breath for long enough to impress a blue whale. In addition to this, more highly evolved muscular fibers made a Time Lord far stronger than a human of the same body type.

With his far superior physiology, longer legs, and the fact that he spent a good portion of his time running (usually away from something that was trying to kill him), the Doctor mused, the strange, crazy man in white should not be able to run faster than him. This fact was apparently lost on the Fearless Master, who was apparently enjoying this entire situation far more than anybody really should.

They rounded a curve in the hallway and skidded to a halt just before they crashed into a door. The Fearless Master looked it up and down, and frowned. It was large, and steel, and looked quite solid. It was also very conspicuously lacking doorknobs, handles, or keyholes.

"I don't suppose they have the common courtesy to put in a keyhole to pick?" The Fearless Master eyed the number pad. "Or to leave the password taped somewhere nearby? You'd be amazed how often people do that."

"No I wouldn't. And if it isn't left lying about, it's either 123456 or PASSWORD. Anyway, I don't need the code." The Doctor grinned, and pulled the Sonic out of his jacket pocket.

Humans found the Sonic Screwdriver almost incomprehensible. The Doctor didn't understand why; you simply adjusted the setting to a number between one and seven thousand. Sure, they weren't labeled with functions, but he couldn't write that small. Besides, he remembered all of them perfectly well. Setting number 2,267 opened keypad-controlled doors; he pointed the Sonic at the number pad.

A brief buzzing, and the door slid open. The Fearless Master eyed the Sonic with a glint in his eyes that the Doctor had seen before. In particular, when Cleopatra had laid eyes on _him. _

"Don't even think about it." The Doctor tucked the Sonic safely away in his jacket. "You couldn't use it anyway. Seven thousand settings and no user's manual." He grimaced. "I _hate _user's manuals. They always tell you that you can't do things."

"Does that work on _any _door?"

"No. Well, yes. Unless it's deadlock sealed. But _no."_

"Did you make that? Because that's _genius."_

"I did, and of course it is. Not to brag, but I'm sort of brilliant."

"So you could make me one." The Fearless Master grinned. "It doesn't need all the settings. Just the one that opens things."

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"_Please?"_

"_No."_

"Pretty please?"

"_NO!"_

A long-suffering sigh. "You're no fun." The ninja took off down the hallway like a shot, the Doctor close on his heels. "So maybe not a Sonic Screwdriver, then. Something that could multitask? How about a Sonic Lockpick? Or a Sonic Hairpin? Or…"

"No, no, and _no!" _The Doctor shook his head. "Sonic _hairpin?_ That's just bloody stupid."

"…or a Sonic Knife. I've got one with a hollow hilt. I store blowgun darts in it, but I could put those…"

"Do you not understand the meaning of the word _no?"_

"Oh, I understand it." The Insane Master smirked. "Just not as it applies to me."

"You must drive your wife batty."

A wide grin, visible right through the mask. "As often as possible. I bet she'd like a Sonic Hairpin. Did you know, she once killed a man with a hairpin?" A slightly glazed expression crossed the visible portion of the ninja's face. "Right through his eye, she got him. I knew right then I was going to marry her."

The Doctor eyed the Insane Master out of the corner of his eyes. Larger lung capacity and a respiratory bypass system made it easy for him to talk and run at the same time, but again, the madman bounding easily alongside him seemed perfectly able to keep up. The Doctor allowed himself a moment of being impressed; whatever else he was, this Insane Master was in probably the best physical shape he'd ever seen for a human. "Y'know, it's a good thing I didn't meet you a few faces back. Leela might have tried to kidnap you to father strong warrior children."

"And could you blame her, really?" The Insane Master gestured to the few square inches of skin around his eyes. "This face? This body? I'll have to decline, though. Happily married, me. No woman was ever born who could compete with my wife, either with bladed weapons or looks." A slight pause. "It might be fun to watch them fight it out, though…And then when Ayame won, we could…"

"Does _nothing _faze you?" The Doctor hastily interrupted the ninja's train of thought before it could plunge to a child-inappropriate rating.

"Nope." Another mad grin. "How do you think I earned my nickname?"

Another door. Another judicious application of Sonic Screwdriver. Another corridor, and another door at the end of it, which began to open of its own accord. The Insane Master unsheathed his sword with a particularly dangerous-sounding metallic _sschikt._ The Doctor didn't see him draw the throwing knives, but once the door was open enough to reveal another eight Cybermen the blades were already flying. The lead four robots toppled as tempered steel sliced through the glass and delicate circuits of their eyes and lodged firmly in the soft brain tissue inside the armored skulls.

The Doctor squinted. "You've got one hell of a throwing arm." He remarked aloud, as the Insane Master charged, then dropped to the floor and slid right under the lead robot, sword flashing. The Cyberman toppled sideways, its leg gone below the knee, as the others turned and attempted to catch sight of the ninja. "You're launching those at…oh…averaged out over your last seven throws, one hundred ninety kilometers per hour. And consistently hitting a target about the size of a quarter, even if you're upside down, sideways, or…like you just did now…jumping sideways, bouncing off the wall, and rolling. I've seen snipers who couldn't hit a Cyberman's eye like that."

The Insane Master sucked in his stomach and jumped backwards; a bolt of plasma fried the Cyberman to his left and left some slight char marks on the white gi. "Ninja."

"You could make a killing in American football…which isn't _really _football, but trust Americans to be difficult…or in that other one that they play, like cricket but with more tobacco spitting…baseball, yes that's it. Either one, you'd make a _fortune."_

"I'd get suspended." The Insane Master removed a metal arm at the shoulder joint and then beheaded its owner. "Rules against using sleeper holds. Or joint locks. Or pressure point strikes. Or bladed weapons."

"You know, you _can _navigate some social situations without resorting to violence. I say, how _do _you keep those knives on your belt from falling out of the sheaths when you backflip like that?"

"Practice." The Insane Master launched a final knife, and the last Cyberman toppled backwards. "Lots and lots of it. And I'll stop using violence when it stops working. So far, I've never found a situation it can't get me out of." Another cheerful grin. "They say do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life."

"…you're mental. Have I mentioned that? Completely, utterly mental."

The Insane Master nodded, looking rather pleased with himself.

*Twelve Minutes and Seventeen Seconds Later*

"How much longer?" The Insane Master ducked a metal arm, dove, and rolled between the legs of a Cyberman. A bolt of plasma left a scorched spot on the deck where he'd been standing a quarter-second ago. "Not to rush you or anything, but I'm out of throwing knives and shuriken don't have the penetrating power to take these things down." He glared at a cyberman a few yards away, a throwing star protruding from each eye socket, screeching "Compromised! Compromised!" and bumping into the wall.

The Doctor was buried up to his trainers in a control panel, doing something extremely complicated with what looked like at _least_ seventeen thousand wires, several of which were actively shooting sparks and one of which was clamped in the Doctor's teeth as he pointed the Sonic Screwdriver at another wire.

"Sorry if I can't rewire the warp core of a Cyberman battleship to feed back into the primary weapon systems faster." The Doctor said. However, he said it around the wire in his teeth, so it came out as "Srry ing ah cann eeeire t aarp cr o a cygrmn attleshik ta eed ack into t aamary eeaon hysems haster."

The Fearless Master pivoted and chopped down, sending a metal hand flying, then whipped his sword sideways in a powerful backhand cut, never breaking the momentum of the weapon. A Cyberman dropped sideways, its leg gone at the knee. "If I break this sword, I'm blaming you. This is my favorite sword. It's not good for them to chop through steel. Onashi would mount my head on his forge door if he saw me treating one of his swords like this."

The Doctor attached the wire in his teeth to one of the other seventeen thousand apparently identical wires with the Sonic Screwdriver. "If you think you can rewire the entire power system of a battle cruiser faster, _be my guest."_

"No, because then _you'd _have to fend off the murderous alien robot-people, and I think that would end with us dying rather quickly." The Fearless Master handsprung back, barely missing another plasma bolt.

"Oi! I've fought Cybermen before! Not dead yet!"

"Can't imagine how." The Fearless Master jammed a fighting knife through a metal eye socket up to the hilt and slammed a foot into a metal knee, hiding the wince as he did so. The metal knee bent at a sickening angle, and the Cyberman toppled over to join the several already dragging themselves about on the floor with their hands. "Considering that your main battle plan seems to be 'run and then rewire things.'"

"When that stops working, I'll stop using it." The Doctor's voice was muffled by the mess of wires, but the Insane Master could still hear the edge of snark in it. "So far, never run into a situation it didn't get me out of."

"And in how many of these other situations did you have someone _else _along to help?" The Insane Master brought down his sword to sever the neck of one of the robots trying to crawl towards the Doctor.

A long pause. "Weeeellllll….maybe a few…."

"I thought so. My point stands." The Insane Master went to sever another neck; with a surprising burst of speed, the Cyberman moved at the last moment, and instead of the thinner neck plating the sword bit into the thick steel of the back of the skull, and snapped about six inches down from the point. "_KONO YAROU! BOKE NOROMA! BLYAD SALOPE KOITSU! MA TEDE SHINJIMAE"_

The Doctor slid out of his nest of wires. "Was that Japanese, French, Russian, _and_ Chinese?"

"_ROT IN HELL! THIS WAS MY FAVORITE SWORD! KOITSU KUSTOTTARE!"_ The Fearless Master snatched up the broken six inches of blade and, furious, hurled it at the next Cyberman. It hit hard enough that it actually rocked the cyborg's head back a few inches.

"And English. My, my. Would you talk in front of your grandmother that way?"

"_ZATKNIS!"_

"Now stop that. I didn't break your sword. I'm sure you can get a new one when we get back to Earth."

The Insane Master, fuming, proceeded to do something that the Doctor, in all of his nine hundred (give or take a couple hundred) years had never seen before. The ninja launched himself, snarling and heedless of the energy bolts singing his clothing, at the next Cyberman and slammed a fist into its chestplate, leaving a rather impressive knuckle-shaped dent. By the time the Cyberman electrified its exterior plating, the fist was already gone and the sword, broken tip notwithstanding, was halfway through its neck.

The Doctor gaped. "Did you just punch a Cyberman?"

"It _broke my sword."_

"You just _punched a Cyberman."_

"It _BROKE MY SWORD."_

"…Right. Anyway, I'm done. We've got about two minutes before it goes critical."

The Fearless Master pounced on the next Cyberman, taking off both hands and both feet in about four tenths of a second.

"That means we have to _leave."_

The Fearless Master didn't appear to hear or pay attention; he flung himself at the next two robots, a knife in one hand and his broken sword in the other.

"D'you remember that pretty wife and little son you keep talking about?" The Doctor's voice had gone tight. "Well, if we don't leave _right now, _you're never going to see them again."

That got a reaction. The Insane Master reluctantly turned and followed him; the Doctor took off, running for all he was worth.

The Doctor was a Time Lord. He could _feel, _in his bones, as each second of that two minutes slipped away. He skidded around a corner, the ninja close behind him, and _there it was, _the emergency teleport system, and they had forty seconds left. Bare-bones, with none of the nicer touches of the main teleport and no aesthetic sense whatsoever, but a beautiful sight nonetheless.

The solid _clump clump clump _of metal feet on deck plating told him that not all of the Cybermen had been subjected to the Ninja Mince-O-Matic, who was still glaring at his broken sword and muttering extremely bad words under his breath.

With thirty seconds to go, the Doctor hit several buttons and flipped a switch. _Left the TARDIS in that warehouse…coordinates 105-7-68-442…_ He flipped to Sonic Screwdriver setting 4,457 and aimed it at a control panel; the bolts unscrewed themselves and he pulled out a fistful of wiring, ripped one free, and connected it to a different circuit. _That'll burn it out after one use…twenty seconds…_

He grabbed the mad ninja by the back of his _gi _and dragged him into the teleport. "Right then!" He grinned. "Tomisaburo, you said your real name was?"

"I did."

"Well, Tomisaburo…._ALLONS-Y!"_ With ten seconds to spare, the Doctor slammed his hand down on the button, and everything dissolved in a swirl of blue. In the Cyberman ship, circuits shorted and a small curl of acrid smoke curled up from the fizzling circuits of the emergency teleport. The Cybermen stared down at it.

Cybermen could not feel emotion. However, if they had, it would have been that of "Oh, fuck me."

The explosion was quite spectacular.

Later news reports that night reported an anomalous flash of light in the sky, which astronomers speculated was a rather large piece of space junk burning up in the upper atmosphere. The myriad of small meteors later in the evening was chalked up to the annual Persiad meteor shower.

As a wise man very familiar with human psychology had once said of the human race; "You're happy to believe in something that's invisible, but if it's staring you in the face…"Nope! Can't see it." There's a scientific explanation for that. You're thick."

*45 minutes Later*

"I really don't do domestic…" The Doctor protested weakly.

The ninja dragging him along via a vicelike grip on his arm ignored this. "…she'll _never _believe this. An _alien. _A real _alien. _I've been on a _spaceship, _and then blew it up! And then _another _spaceship, that's bigger on the inside!" A scowl. "Break my sword, will you? I could have killed at _least _four more of them before we had to go."

The Doctor shot a longing glance at the TARDIS, parked perilously close to a quite tasteful planting of rose bushes near the garden wall. He'd _meant _to just drop the crazy man off at his home, but the Insane Master had gotten it into his head that he was going to take the alien home for dinner and drinks. No amount of protesting had seemed to dissuade him, and when they'd landed he'd physically grabbed the Doctor and was now half dragging and half frog marching him up the front walk towards the house.

The Tardis sent a sensation of _amusedfunnylaughter_. The Doctor glared at his ship. "Traitor. See if I clean the corrosion off of your power couplings for another _week _now."

"AYAME!" The Fearless Master burst through the front door of the disconcertingly normal little house in the suburbs of Fresno. The only thing that marked it as not _totally _normal was the twelve-foot stone wall around the entire property.

A pretty, petite woman emerged from one of the other rooms, and was immediately swept into a rib-creaking embrace and kiss. The Doctor started edging for the doorway; the two didn't seem likely to come up for air anytime soon. Just as he was about to tiptoe outside, though, a hand closed on the back of his coat and he was spun back around to face the Insane Master's wife. "Ayame! I found an alien and he followed me home!" The Fearless Master beamed, showing a lot of very white teeth. "Can I keep him? I think he likes me."

Ayame eyed the Doctor, apparently unfazed. "He doesn't look like an alien, dear. What did I tell you about bringing home strays?"

"That I'd have to take care of them and clean up after them." The Fearless Master was still grinning. "And he's definitely an alien. Two hearts, I can't put him out with a sleeper hold, and he's got a spaceship. It looks like a telephone box, but it's bigger on the inside. You can see it outside. It's parked next to your roses, but don't worry. We didn't crush any."

Ayame didn't even blink, earning her about a thousand points in the Doctor's estimation. "I was wondering what that noise was." A glint of silver at her wrist as she slid something away, and for the first time, the Doctor noticed that the fabric of her sleeve bunched just slightly, in a way that suggested a hidden knife strapped to her forearm. "Very well. He can stay. I'll get the good sake out. I take it work went well?"

"Hello." Realizing that he wasn't getting out of this easily, the Doctor smiled and waved. "I'm the Doctor."

"The target was an alien." The Fearless Master was still grinning. "I just blew up a _battleship in space."_

Ayame's eyebrows crept upwards slightly.

"It's true." The Doctor interjected. "Saved the city, I did. He helped a bit."

"Helped a _bit?_ Who kept your scrawny backside alive long enough to rewire the whatsit to the thingy?"

"He _does _have two heartbeats. I'll get a few bottles of sake warmed up, then." Ayame nodded to herself. "Misao is visiting; she's got a mission in Washington, so she'll be here for a few days. Don't be surprised if she turns up. This sounds like a long story. Is one of your alien powers to get your hair to do that?"

The Doctor ran a hand over his head. "What's wrong with my hair? I like my hair. Long sight better than the last time around; if I tried to grow it out as Nine, it got all cowlicky in the back and looked funny." A pause. "Wait…how do you know I have two heartbeats?"

"Ear that Sees." She turned vanished through a door.

"What?"

"Ear that Sees." The Insane Master repeated this as if it explained everything. The grip on his arm tightened again, and the Doctor found himself getting dragged up a hallway and into a large, airy nursery. He blinked several times; he'd seen a few nurseries in his nine-hundred-something years…old pain stirred, the memory of a different nursery, so long ago, with a mobile of Gallifrey and its suns and sister planets over the cot, and in the cot a little bright-eyed girl…

He clamped down hard on the memory before those old wounds could rip open again, pushing it back down into the little place where he kept it in the back of his mind. Point was, he'd never before seen a nursery where the mobile over the crib was made of blunted throwing stars.

The infant in the crib was studiously attempting to chew the head off of a small blue stuffed elephant. When he caught sight of his father, however, the elephant was flung to the side and the boy begged to be picked up, grinning toothlessly.

The Doctor smiled. "'Ello there! What's your name, then?"

The Fearless Master, grinning from ear to ear, obliged. The baby boy immediately started trying to grab the straps holding the sword on his father's back. "Hello, trouble. Almost thought for a few minutes there that I wouldn't see you again." He tickled his son's feet, earning a squeal of laughter. He turned to the Doctor. "This is Tomisaburo, my son." He leaned over closer. "Means third son. Told my brothers it was to honor the memories of _their _sons, but I named him after myself. Don't tell them."

"Everyone already knows that, dear." Ayame was standing _right behind him. _The Doctor absolutely, positively did not jump, even a little tiny bit. He hadn't heard her walk up. He _should _have heard her walk up.

"May I?" The Fearless Master handed the baby over. "'Ello! I'm the Doctor! Hmm? Oh, of course." He propped the baby boy against his shoulder and patted him on the back. Tommy hiccupped and then spit up. "There you go. Better? Oh, don't worry about the coat. The TARDIS will get it out. Ah, very well." He handed the little boy back over to the Fearless Master. "He wants to play with daddy's shiny toys. Except he calls you 'the fun one'." Another pause. "And you're 'the one with milk.' Now, that's not nice. You should call her 'mummy.'"

Both adult ninja looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"I speak baby." The Doctor listened again. "What? Oh, yes. Yes, I've got two heartbeats. Blimey, you've got good ears in this family…I'm an alien, see. From another planet. What? No. No, I'm _not _tellingyour daddy to let you play with his shiny toys. You'll hurt yourself, that's why. What? Oh. Oh, I see." He glanced at Ayame and the Fearless Master. "He wants you two to stop making the squeaky bed noises at night. He says they wake him up."

Ayame went bright red. The Fearless Master just nodded. "I'll get some grease and oil the springs. You speak _baby?"_

"I speak everything. Hmm? Yes, I think I might have a toy here somewhere…hang on…" The Doctor dug through his pockets, finding several bits of machinery, a packet of Jammy Dodgers…Rassilon only knew how long those had been in there; he absently popped one in his mouth as he kept digging…his stethoscope, three novels he was reading, and…_aha!..._one Venusian Moonstone. He tossed the fist-sized, polished, translucent, milky-white stone in the air a few times and then handed it over. Tommy happily began gumming on it immediately.

"That must have been useful."

The Doctor looked up sharply at the Fearless Master, who was eyeing him back. "I'm sorry?"

"Being able to speak baby. When your children were young."

_Damn. _He'd done it again; any parent with half a brain could suss out another parent within seconds of seeing them play with a baby. "It was." His voice had gone hard around the edge, indicating that he had no particular desire to continue with this line of questioning.

Both the Fearless Master and Ayame's eyebrows crept upwards again. "Was?" Ayame's voice was soft, but in that one word there was a wealth of understanding and pity.

_Damn. She's as clever as he is. _"Was." He turned and clapped his hands together, blatantly changing the subject. "Now! I think I was promised a drink?"

*Four hours later*

"Nuh uh. Can't be done." The Doctor finished off his glass of sake and reached for the bottle again. Was this the fifth one? Sixth? Sixth. That was a funny word. Sixth. Sixth. Six..th. Sixxxth. "Can't drink a Time Lord under th' table. Super…superior physiology. That's a funny word too. Phys-i-ol-ogy."

"'ve seen War of the Worlds." The Insane Master had foregone the cup after his first six, in favor of drinking straight from the bottle. "You're an alien. No toler…tolerma…can't stand Earth stuff, right?" He brandished his sake bottle. "Means I can drink more of this."

"Been on Earth a long while. Fond of th' place." The Doctor refused to acknowledge that he was slurring his words slightly. "I say, this stuff is _good. _Where'd you get it?"

"Home." The Fearless Master grinned. "Little brewery in the mountains. Have my brothers ship it over. Hard Master sends a written lecture with every box. _'_Ninja don't get drunk,' he says. Ha! Well, I'mma ninja, n' I'm _drunk, _an' I could _still_ beat him stupid_._ So there."

"'M going to assume from your nickname that not _all _ninja are as mental as you."

"Nope."

"Thank God. Dunno if this planet could handle more like you."

The Fearless Master grinned happily. "Wait'll Tommy gets older. Teach him everything I know. _Everything._ An' make him seven or eight siblings, Or 's many as I can before my wife starts threatening my manhood with sharp things. Raise em' _all _right."

The Doctor contemplated that for a minute, shuddered, and took another drink.

*Two hours later*

"Tha' one there." The Doctor, lying on the flat roof over the front porch, pointed, somewhat unsteadily. "Second planet. Bird people. Don't call them tha', though. Rude. And tha' one there." Another point. "Great huge lizards wi' six legs an' four arms."

"That one?" The Fearless Master's pointing finger was even unsteadier than the Doctor's.

"Gas giant. Huge great beasts. Like balloons, full of hydrogen. Photosync…photo…like plants. Eat sunlight."

"N' way."

"Cross my hearts."

"That one?"

The Doctor squinted. "Dead now. Blew up. Boooom. Supernova. Won't see it here for ten thousand years. I watched." He grinned happily. "It was pretty."

"That one?"

"Triple system." The Doctor waggled three fingers. "Three stars. No planets. Four asteroid belts."

"_Fine. _Maybe you _do _know 'em all."

"Told you. Pass the bottle. _Need _t' pick some of this stuff up."

"So, you can go _anywhere."_ The Insane Master obliged.

"Yup."

"Any_when."_

"Yup."

"An' you're here, on my roof, drunk."

"Yup." The Doctor finished off the bottle. "Thank Rassilon Jack isn't here, or he'd be trying to take advantage of us both. Probably your wife, too. "

"Jack?"

"A friend. Fifty-first century. Omnisexual. Anythin' that moves. _Anythin'. _Fancied me, last body. This one too, pro'bly. Blokes don't do it for me, though. All hard edges. No _soft _bits."

Blimey, if he was talking about his sexual preferences, he _was _drunk. Should probably slow down a bit. After this next drink.

The Fearless Master nodded sagely. "Had a mark want to take me an' three girls back to his place once. Made it easy. An' could you blame him, really? _Lookit_ this face." He gestured to himself. "These cheekbones alone… Anyways, don't worry 'bout Ayame. She'd castrate him." He shrugged placidly and uncorked another bottle.

"You're jus' as modest as him, y'know."

The Insane Master grinned. "Fantastic."

"Ooh! I always liked that word. Fantastic. _Fan. Tastic. _Fantastic. Fan-tast-tic. Used to use it more. _Should_ use it more. It's a fantastic word. Fantastic is a fantastic word." The Doctor grinned happily.

"You're a strange man."

"Lookit who's talkin', Mr-Let's-Punch-A-Cyberman."

"They wern' so tough."

"My point 'zactly. Gimme the bottle. How many've these you had?"

The Fearless Master considered this for a moment. "A few."

"Ha! See, I've had _several, _an' everyone knows that's more'n a few. Ready to conce…conbl…give up yet?"

The Insane Master snorted. "Never. Smashed drunk, an' I could _still _pick your pockets an' you'd never know."

"I've had people an' aliens try an' pick my pockets on one hundred seventy planets an' none of them could manage it."

"Never had _me _pick it. 'Cause I'd manage."

"Ha!"

"That a challenge, space-boy?"

"Five quid says you can't lift somthin' from me."

"The hell is a 'quid'?"

"Pound. British."

"You're _on._"

"The Sonic is exempt from the bet."

"_Damn."_

"Ha. Clever, me, remember? Pass the bottle."

*Eight Hours Later*

The Doctor didn't require sleep often. However, given that he'd drunk a _lot _more than he'd intended to, his body had finally decided that it would be wise to shut things down for a bit to deal with the imminent case of alcohol poisoning, since the idiot brain piloting things apparently wasn't going to have the good sense to stop anytime soon.

Lying on the decidedly uncomfortable shingles of the roof, squinting up at the bright sun, the Doctor decided that that was his story. Brief healing coma to deal with the early stages of alcohol poisoning. He had _not _passed out drunk. Absolutely not.

Another slightly foggy memory floated to the surface. Blimey. Had he snogged the Insane Master's cousin last night? The one visiting for purposes of stabbing people? He groaned to himself. _Bloody hell, I snogged a ninja. Why'd I do that? Oh, right. Drunk.__ Never doing that again. The drunk thing, not the snogging thing._

Someone had thoughtfully laid a blanket over him and given him a pillow. The Doctor was guessing that this had not been the Fearless Master, who'd been even drunker than he'd been. He made a mental note to thank Ayame, who he was rapidly deciding was a possible candidate for sainthood. Well. Except for the fondness for stabbing. A stabby saint. Was that a thing? It was now. Ayame Arashikage, stabby saint.

He sat up gingerly, and immediately noticed that something felt wrong. He checked himself over. Trainers, present. Pants on legs. Jacket still fantastic, though he should get the TARDIS to clean it. Shirt on. Suit jacket still sharp. Tie…

Oh, _bollocks. _Now he owed a ninja five quid.

"TOMISABURO ARASHIKAGE! WHERE DID YOU PUT MY TIE?! Bloody ninja…"


	5. Chapter 5

As cells went, this one wasn't too bad. The mattress was reasonably good, the sheets were clean, the cell was clean, there was an actual toilet, and there didn't seem to be any immediate plan to kill or torture him. The food wasn't even too bad. Over the last nine hundred (according to some calendars) years, he'd been in much worse cells.

They'd even given him a book when he'd asked for it. Okay, so maybe it had been the forty-eighth time he'd asked for it, and only then mostly to shut him up, but the Doctor was still counting that as a victory.

He licked a finger and delicately turned a page, then glanced up at his guard. "I say, do you think I could get a cup of tea? Goes splendidly with a book, tea."

The man stationed outside his door heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Do you _ever _shut up?"

"What's wrong with talking? Would you really rather just stand there staring at the wall for six hours? Sounds boring. So that's a no on the tea, then?"

"Yes."

"So that's a yes on the tea?"

"_No!"_

"No need for that tone. Is he always so touchy?"

The dog sitting at the guard's feet cocked his head and whined.

"Yes, I'm sure you have tried. Still, you can only work with what you're given. It's not your fault that he's still rude."

Junkyard huffed a doggy sigh. Mutt blinked several times. "Are you talking to my _dog?"_

"According to him, you're _his _human. And yes. I speak dog." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "He's a far better conversationalist than you, really."

"He's got you there, Mutt." The other guard was currently, in the very best boring guard duty tradition, studiously holding up the wall with his back and attempting to doze with his eyes open, which was rather difficult due to the constant stream of chatter coming from the cell. He was grinning. "Junk's always been the brains of the pair of you."

Mutt made a very creative and extremely rude gesture. Dusty just grinned more widely and raised a hand in a pacifying sort of guesture. "Hey, I meant it as a compliment…Junkyard is smarter than eighty percent of the people I know."

Junkyard panted, his tongue lolling out. The Doctor returned to his book. "Soooo…no tea then…I don't suppose you have hot chocolate? Lovely stuff, hot chocolate. I had to teach them how to make it properly once it got to Europe, though. The Aztecs used to just pound it in water with chile. Terrible bitter stuff, and I never did convince them that the whole sacrificing virgins thing was useless. Actually, they tried to sacrifice _me _at first, then decided I was a god and tried to sacrifice _to _me. Long story short, Aztecs are mental and their high priest was a plasmavore and was using ritual sacrifices as a source of food. Where was I? Hot chocolate, yes. Much better for a load of milk and sugar. Of course, _most _things are better for a load of sugar. Like marmalade! You wouldn't think that orange peels could be so brilliant until you taste marmalade."

Mutt groaned and thumped his forehead firmly against the cement of the wall a couple of times. Dusty just returned to napping open-eyed.

* * *

Several floors above, Breaker and a small army of techs and engineers were examining a blue police box, with fairly frustrating results. Several dozen tests had revealed that, apparently, what they had on their hands was a wooden box, covered with blue paint.

A wooden box covered with blue paint that C4 couldn't touch, crowbars couldn't scratch, and the high-speed application of Snake Eye's shoulder and Roadblock's boot couldn't cave in. Smashing at the windows with a hammer had had exactly zero effect. If Breaker didn't know any better, he'd have thought that the blue box was projecting an aura of _smug. _But that was just silly. A police box couldn't be smug. A spaceship couldn't be smug. Because they were both inanimate objects, and didn't have emotions.

He poked the side of the box again. Blue paint. Wood. A wooden spaceship. _Not possible. This is all utterly impossible. Except I SAW it materialize right on top of Scarlett's plate and break the table. _

The blue police box, sitting innocently in the middle of the room, didn't say anything, but inside the blue box the TARDIS was thinking, and was indeed feeling rather pleased with herself. Her thief complained to her sometimes that she didn't always take him where he wanted to go…or he _would _complain, in the future…but that wasn't the point. She took him where he had to be, where Time and the multiverse said he was needed.

The TARDIS was sentient, brilliant and vastly old. She'd been old when the Doctor had still been a babe in the cradle. She was the last of her kind, inconceivably powerful, and held knowledge that no one, not even her beautiful thief, could even begin to comprehend. She'd not been like her sisters; she'd wanted to see _everything, _and so she'd stolen herself a Time Lord, the only one mad enough to want to run with her. She'd survived the Time War, when all of her sisters had perished with Gallifrey. She saw Time, all that had been and could be, and she had plans that even her Doctor didn't know about.

And so far, all was going exactly according to plan. She settled down to wait, making sure her shields were holding so that the curious little humans poking at her hull wouldn't do any damage, and looked again at the timelines, a trillion billion tangled threads of gold stretching away to infinity.

She hummed happily to herself. Humans…and Time Lords…were so frustratingly thick sometimes. Every now and then she had to meddle a bit in their lives for their own good. And for the good of her beloved thief, she'd meddle more than just a bit.

* * *

Half a world away, Destro was very carefully running a fiber-optic cable through a conduit little larger than the eye of a needle.

The theory was solid. Send someone back in time, destroy your enemies before they could become a threat. Alternately, send someone _forwards _in time and return with interesting bits of technology that could be engineered into unsurpassable weaponry, weapons that could have the whole of the planet helpless and at your feet.

His original time machine (while entirely brilliant) had been large, bulky, and, to be quite frank, unsightly. This newer model was smaller, sleeker, and had a pleasing sort of spare, clean-lined Spartan appeal that Destro was rather proud of.

He'd preformed a few experiments since the last batch had failed so spectacularly (he hadn't even managed to get a vial of Tyrannosaurus Rex blood, which Cobra Commander had pitched a week-long tantrum over.) Interestingly enough, his recent experiments (with mice and hamsters this time) had seemed to disprove his earlier theorem that time was fixed. He'd seen with his own eyes a litter of baby mice blink out of existence by sending a viper back in time to kill their sire.

If it worked in the controlled environment of a lab on mice, it _should _work in the real world on people. Except it didn't seem to. It was almost as if his time agents were being purposefully interfered with; he was starting to suspect human intelligence behind the phenomenon rather than the laws of physics.

This raised another problem, though. _Who _was interfering with his time agents? There was no one else on the planet who'd managed to produce a working time machine; the academic journals he'd submitted his work to were _still _refusing to publish his findings, on the basis that 'it might win you a Nebula award, but we don't do science fiction.'

Destro shook his head; it was his curse to inhabit a planet filled with lesser minds, minds that couldn't even begin to appreciate his level of genius and probably wouldn't be able to for centuries.

So, someone from the future, then? He felt this was a strong possibility, and it raised the problem of identifying the person or persons responsible for interfering with his work and removing them from the picture.

The _other _problem this raised was that he didn't know what he was up against, and he didn't particularly trust the average Cobra footsoldier with any task more complicated than picking his or her own nose. On the other hand, he certainly didn't want to go himself and expose himself to an unknown enemy who was quite possibly better equipped than he was.

The answer had been obvious. He needed more competent agents to gather information and report to him on exactly what he was up against. The Dreadnoks were vicious enough to deal with most threats, but had the average IQ score of a stick of celery. So he'd hired the Night Creepers.

Night Creepers had always proven to be remarkably ineffective against the Joe team…particularly if Storm Shadow, Snake Eyes or Scarlett were about. Storm Shadow, in particular, seemed to delight in turning highly trained and expensively equipped Night Creepers into so much shark chum and mangled electronic bits; Destro rather thought this was because the ninja took personal offense at the idea that ninja abilities could be aped with high-tech equipment. Snake Eyes, who had a long-standing love affair with the Uzi submachine gun, C4, and fragmentation grenades, seemed less upset by ninja using high-tech toys. This did not stop him from turning any Night Creepers sent to assassinate him into so many piles of (expensive) meat.

However, if the Night Creepers he'd hired were sent back in time, their high-tech toys would be as good as magic and their ninja abilities would prove invaluable when facing an unknown enemy.

He attached the fiber optic cable to the temporal stabilizer and reached for the next one. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn't hear the door to his lab hiss open; the sound of stiletto heels clicking against the floor, however, made him sit up too fast and knock his forehead against the underside of the time machine; his mask _clanged_ when it hit the titanium plating.

"James, are you _still _fiddling with that thing?" The Baroness shook her head. "You've been in here all day. Have you even eaten?"

"I have been working, my dear." Destro slid out from under the time machine and stood up anyway; his spine cracked. _Hmm. Perhaps I should take a break._ He glanced at the clock and blinked; he hadn't realized that it was getting so late.

The Baroness sighed and shook her head again. "You are like a dog worrying at a bone when you've got a project, James. Have I ever told you that?"

"Many times." Destro took her hand and pressed his lips against the back of it. "But for you, my dear Baroness, I shall leave the rest of my 'fiddling' for later."

She smiled at him and took his hand. All thoughts of circuits and power supplies and wiring schematics evaporated in a nanosecond, forgotten as the Baroness gave him that smile that she reserved just for him.

Yes. Subjugating the planet could wait until after dinner.


	6. Chapter 6

I am having, way, way, WAY too much fun writing the Doctor. BBC; call me. I'll take over. My rates are reasonable; I ask only for pictures of David Tennant holding a Sonic Screwdriver and wearing nothing but Chuck Taylors, the Janis Joplin coat, and a cheeky grin. And possibly twenty minutes of him wearing the same outfit, and then locked alone in a soundproofed closet with me.

Don't worry, David. I'll be gentle. _Mostly_.

* * *

By the time the man who called himself General Hawk came to get him, the Doctor had finished the first book he'd been given (_Firestarter, _by Stephen King. He'd read it before, but he never minded a re-read of a bit of Stephen King). He'd then read the _second _book they'd given him (he'd only had to ask nine times this time; they were learning). The second book had been _Cosmos, _by Carl Sagan, and the Doctor made himself a mental note to drop by good old Carl soon and take him and Ann for another spin.

It would be the mystery of centuries once humans developed interstellar travel how, when Carl Sagan had written _Contact,_ his one science fiction book, he gotten the details so exact. To be precise, the details of the Vega system, the Chuutani system's dual suns, and no less than three other star systems. The Doctor, whenever he heard these discussions, just blinked innocently.

He never had gotten his tea. He _had _gotten his hot chocolate, which may have been an effort to stop him from detailing every planet that had tasty hot drinks and how much he'd like each one at this exact moment.

Everyone always accused him of nattering on. What they didn't realize that it was nearly always an extremely effective strategy for wearing down all opposition and getting his way. Plus, it wasn't _his _fault that things were so interesting.

He was playing with a rubber ball Junkyard had brought him. (or, to use his proper Dog name, Blackfang, Lord of the Pit, who showed his belly to none but Deathjaw, whom the humans called Timber, the great gray wolf who claimed all he saw. The Doctor had blinked at that, but Junkyard/Blackfang insisted that yes, he really meant _wolf.)_

General Hawk, the grumpy smelly violent man, and the clever one (Beach and Flint, he remembered them being called) and a man so blond, blue-eyed, and strong-jawed that the Doctor immediately mentally dubbed him Captain America showed up as he was idly bouncing the ball off of one of the bars on the cell, the celling, the floor, the wall, and catching it again. He eyed the blond Army recruiting ad and made a mental note to get those last five episodes of his Captain America comics signed by Jack Kirby soon.

"'Ello!" He did a few quick vector and force calculations in his head and bounced the ball again. It hit the wall, the floor, the ceiling, and landed back beside Junkyard, who caught it. He swung his legs off the bed, bounced up, and leaned against the cell bars, grinning. "I really must complement you on the cell. Been in a lot of cells, me, and I really _must _say that this is the nicest one I've ever seen. Still, a bit boring. You going to let me out of it yet, or am I going to have to break out?"

General Hawk raised his eyebrows. "You couldn't. The only one I've ever seen break out of that cell was Storm Shadow, and he broke out of _Alcatraz._"

The Doctor grinned. "It'd take me five minutes. Sorry, General. But that's a basic four-digit code pad, right?"

All four men raised their eyebrows. "I'd hardly say _basic. _This is the highest tech security system made." General Hawk raised an eyebrow in a way that the Doctor decided was distinctly _challenging._

"Right! So all I'd have to do is break the code and somehow wirelessly transmit it to the system…oh, look! Someone was kind enough to leave me parts!" He hopped up on the bed, grabbed the video camera, and ripped it off of its mount, leaving it dangling from a mass of wires. "See, the hardest part would be guessing the code, but if you have a computer that can do the guessing for you. But I don't have a computer. However, I _do _have this beautifully _digital _camera." He ripped the side panel open. "So I change out a few components, cross a few wires, and _bingo! _Basic computer. And then I attach _this _to _this, _and instead of transmitting video data it'll transmit every number, starting with one and running through a hundred a second, and since it's a four digit number it should take a few second before…"

The door slid open. The eyes of every man standing outside his cell were _priceless._ The Doctor sauntered out and grinned winningly. "Brilliant, me. I did tell you."

"If you ever teach any of the ninja how to do that," General Hawk's voice was impressively level. "Anything that happens as a result will be _entirely _your fault, and I will lay all due blame and responsibility squarely at your feet."

"Duly noted. So, how've your people been doing with the TARDIS?" The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned again. "No headway, eh?"

"They tell me that it is, apparently, a small wooden box covered with blue paint."

The Doctor's grin widened. "Chameleon Circuit. It's _thorough. _It's been a few hours since that one over there marched me down here…and _what _did I tell you about a shower…finished arguing about things and finally decide to help me go prevent people from preventing you being born?" He frowned slightly. "And I want my Sonic back. I _love_ my Sonic."

"You'll have a small team accompanying you." General Hawk's voice was tight. "I'm still not entirely sure I believe you, but we know that Destro has a time machine, and we know that it works, we don't know where it is, and none of us particularly like the idea of having our parent murdered before we're born."

"That'd actually be the least of your problems." The Doctor frowned. "Well, not the least of _your _problems, but if he's clever enough to build a time machine with nineteen eighties technology, he's clever enough to use it to go forward and steal some technology that'd make him either a very rich or very dangerous man. Normally I'd object to having tag-alongs, but..."

_But I've been alone for too long, and I'm so very, very lonely._

"…but they might be a bit of help. Know your enemy and all, what?"

"He's both." Flint said shortly. "Destro's both of those things. He's already rich and dangerous."

"Destro." The Doctor muttered to himself. "Destro. Why don't I know that name? I should know that name if he managed to build a time machine this early. Oi! You! Clever one!"

Flint blinked.

"Yes, you. This Destro. What's his real name?"

"Ah…James. James McCullen. The twenty-sixth, I believe."

"_James McCullen! _No! Really? No! Oh, that's _brilliant!_" The Doctor's body language tended to border on 'spastic' when he was excited; he gestured wildly and bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet, grinning so widely that General Hawk wondered momentarily if his face was going to unzip itself at the edges. "Oh, I had no _idea _that he invited it this early! They didn't publish the findings until two thousand twenty! Oh, but he's a _genius! _And coming from me, that's a complement, because I'm usually comparing them to, well, me. Mind you, he's a mad one, no regard for human life or safety, complete egomaniac, convicted terrorist, wanted to rule the world and all, but _completely _brilliant. Did you know, all of human time travel will be based on his work? Fifty first century, they'll refine it down to a wristwatch, and then for some reason they'll give it to Jack, but for hundreds of years no one will really be able to improve on his original. _Way _ahead of his time. Completely mad, and obviously I'll have to stop him, but _completely brilliant." _He grinned happily. "Oh, can't _believe _I'll get to meet him! And then stop him. But _meet _him! One of the cleverest humans ever. Pity he was such an utter bastard. Why do you lot call him Destro, anyways?"

All four men blinked at him for a moment. The Doctor waited patiently; he was used to this reaction by now. Humans seemed to have it around him quite a lot.

"I dunno why he calls himself Destro." Beachhead shrugged. "Why do you call yourself 'the Doctor?"

"Because I _am _the Doctor." The Doctor gave him a Look. Beachhead's eyebrows drew together under his balaclava, and a low, dangerous sort of growl emanated from him.

"Yeah, well, he's Destro." Beach folded his arms and muttered something that sounded distinctly like. "Scrawny fuckin' nutjob."

"In anycase." General Hawk raised his voice just enough to get their attention. "I had _better _get my team back in one piece, Doctor. It does not make me a happy man when my people don't come home."

The Doctor eyed him for a long moment. "No, I don't believe it would. And I reckon that seeing you upset is not something that brave men relish, is it, General?"

General Hawk allowed himself a very small smile.

"You might be an American and you might be a soldier, but I think that I rather like you, General Hawk." The Doctor nodded. "I can't promise you no one will get hurt. But I can promise that I'll do everything in my power to keep them safe."

Hawk just nodded, then dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a blue-tipped metal cylinder. He tossed it to the Doctor, who caught it deftly, grinning happily.

"_There _we go, then!" He buffed the Sonic Screwdriver on one sleeve and examined it critically. "They didn't do anything mean to you, did they?"

The Sonic Screwdriver apparently passed muster; he tucked it into his inner jacket pocket. "Right then. Let's see your people. There have to be a few who are at least halfway clever."

* * *

*Thirty minutes later*

"No no _no!" _The Doctor was scowling. "I don't care _what _you say. _No guns! _We are _not _going to storm in there and blow everything up and kill everyone! If we're going on _my_ ship, we're going by _my _rules, and my rules say _no guns. _I'll leave the lot of you here and just go myself. _No guns! No just busting in and killing everyone!_"

The assembled Joes all blinked at him. Alpine tentatively raised a hand. "Then what are we supposed to do, exactly?"

The Doctor shoved a hand through his hair. "_Soldiers!_ What's worse, _Americans!_ Does it never occur to you to just _talk _to people instead of _shooting them_?"

"Usually by the time we get sent somewhere, it's so far past the point of talking that we're dodging RPG fire before we even land." Tunnel Rat supplied. "And the world is _welcome. _Saved their collective asses from so many crazy psycho megalomaniacs that I know more about the inner workings of Cobra than what's going on between my sister and her current boyfriend."

"Oh, UNIT would love you lot…Oi! You! What are you doing?"

Breaker had the video camera the Doctor had lobotomized in pieces across his lap. He shot the Time Lord a dirty look. "Fixing the camera that _you _destroyed. Though the code transmitter you built out of it was genius."

"Well, yes. I built it." The Doctor pulled his glasses out of his pocket and slid them on, then craned his neck to look over Breaker's shoulder. "Where'd you learn to make those? Without the videocassettes?"

Breaker snorted. "Video cassette tapes will be obsolete in ten years. Compact data discs are going to be the thing. Better data retention, slower decay rate, and you can fit a lot more in a smaller package."

"You built these yourself?"

Breaker grinned. "Uncle Sam buys me all the spare parts I need. I can build better equipment than anything on the open market."

"So, if I asked you what the future held for computer technology…?"

"Silicon-based microprocessors, flat LED screens, and lithium-ion batteries. In twenty years we'll have phones the size of calculators with internal computers twice as powerful as the best desktop currently available."

"Oh, _very_ good. Wait until you see wireless device charging. You're in. And you. Clever one. The one who knows that Keats isn't something you stick on your shoes to run a bit faster. You're in."

Jaye and Flint both stood up simultaneously. The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Good God! There are _two _of you here who can read? Well then. Both of you. In."

"_Hold, take my sword. There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out. Take thee that too. A heavy summons lies like lead upon me, and yet I would not sleep."_

Everyone in the room slowly turned to stare at Beachhead. The Doctor did a double take.

Beach crossed his arms, glaring, and kept going. "_Merciful powers, restrain in me the cursed thoughts that nature gives way to in repose!" _

The silence that fell was very, very loud. Courtney was grinning one of the most incredibly smug grins that any of the Joe team had ever seen. The silence was broken only by Flint's low, impressed whistle and Jaye's applause.

"Macbeth." The Doctor said finally.

"Act two, scene one." Beach rumbled. "Banquo."

The Doctor blinked several times. "Yes. Quite. I rather liked that bit. Will was worried that the whole play was too gloomy, you know, but I told him he should keep on with it. Funnily enough, the scene where Macbeth sees the dagger floating before him? He got the idea for that from a spot of trouble we got into. Dellovinianites. Telekinetic. Long story. Square root of two thousand, nine hundred and sixteen?"

"Fifty four."

"Distance in kilometers to the moon?"

"Three hundred an' fifty six thousand four hundred." Beach's eyes were glinting. "At the closest approach."

"Blimey."

"Yeah. Ain't as dumb as you thought, am ah, space-boy?" Beach smirked. "Valedictorian of mah class, ah'll have you know."

"Yes. Well. Well, you didn't really let on that you were clever at all, did you? All muscles and angry and smelly and violent and…and…" The Doctor gesticulated wildly. "Well, _soldiery._"

Beach just continued smirking. "People have a handy habit of underestimating you if'n they think you're no smarter'n the average grunt."

"Oh, you _are _a bit clever, aren't you? _Fine._ Just…no _killing_. Not unless there's absolutely no other choice." The Doctor looked Beach over. "You could be a bit useful, actually. I'd like to see a few people drag _you _into some tiny little damp cell and chain you up while they're plotting to kill you."

"Been there." Beach shrugged, and then grinned nastily. "Ah bet that one sonovabitch _still _thinks of me on cold mornings when his knee twinges."

"…oh, good God. Oh, I'm going to regret this..."

Snake Eyes and Scarlett shared a look. Simultaneously, and without a word, both rose to their feet, Tommy barely a millisecond behind them.

"We're coming." Scarlett said calmly. "I'm coming because I'm the best counterintelligence agent on the planet, behind Jaye I'm one of the best spies on the planet, and because I'm good in a tight spot. Snake Eyes is coming because I'm coming, and I'd like to see you try to stop him."

The Doctor looked from Scarlett, to Snake Eyes, and back to Scarlett. "Trying to get you away from her is going to involve pointy things to uncomfortable bits, isn't it?"

Snake Eyes nodded.

"…Right. And you…oh, Rassilon save me, you've got that same look on your face that _he _did before he dragged me out of the TARDIS to meet your mother. _Fine._ No more. Oh, I'm going to _regret this."_

"I'm going too." Courtney folded her arms and glared.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"_Yes._" Courtney glared. "And if you need reasons, I'm a mechanic. I can fix a broken jeep with a wrench, six bubblegum wrappers, some sand, Elmer's glue, duct tape, and a shoestring. I can drive anything with wheels better than anyone else on this base, and fix any motor ever made. "

"I am going to have _words _with the TARDIS for bringing me here. If I regenerate during the next week, it will be her fault _entirely_." The Doctor scrubbed a hand over his face and ruffled his hair for the sixth time in the last ten minutes. "I am _so _going to regret this. Why am I doing this? I'm _really _going to regret this."


	7. Chapter 7

Hey! Where'd all this _plot _come from? WHY ARE YOU IN MY CRACKFIC, PLOT?

BBC; My offer still stands. I would also accept photos of Christopher Eccelson in nothing but Doc Martins and a grin as payment. He needs to be holding a Sonic Screwdriver. That part should go without saying.

* * *

_This is a really bad idea, and you know it._

_Shut up, _the Doctor sternly instructed the little voice far back in his mind. For some reason in this incarnation, whenever he was arguing with himself the dissenting opinion always appeared as his previous body, all ears and nose, northern accent and leather jacket, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

_ They're soldiers. You could do this far better alone. They'll just muck things up and get hurt, or you'll get attached, and THEN they'll get hurt, and it will be all your fault._

_ Shut up. You should understand. I've been alone for…oh, too long. They've all gone on. All of them. Martha. Donna. And Rose…Rose has what she's always wanted. A life with me. I'm alone again, and you know what that feels like. And when there are people around, being loud and stupid and brilliant and HUMAN, it hurts less. You know that. And this lot…there are so many, and they're so human, and so very, very loud. Maybe they can drown out all the other things, for a little bit. Maybe I can forget how they move on, and leave me behind, and I'm left as I was before, so lonely, with just a little bit more pain to carry._

_ This is still a bad idea. It could all go so wrong._

_ Or it could be brilliant._

The group…the Doctor couldn't decide if their name was brilliant irony or simply unimaginative…_G.I. Joe? Really?..._were chattering to each other, busily laying plans in that triple-contingency, ironclad, foolproof, guaranteed to go belly-up within twenty seconds of actual contact with the enemy way that seemed to be a characteristic of every military ever. The Doctor listened with half an ear, picking out bits of information that might be important and filing them away for later reference.

_Three couples. The clever couple, the poets. The mechanic and the big smelly clever one…and that's why she wanted to come, not because she thought that there would be engines to fix. She wanted to be with him. And the ninja and the redhead. The ninja…he doesn't talk. Always masked. Can't talk. Injury? Yes. The computer genius; so clever, so far ahead of his time, yet he's here, in a job that could kill him. The other ninja, Tomisaburo's son…pain there, lots of pain, not just his parents dying. Something's happened to him, something that's still hurting. _

_ Destro. Lives in Scotland, but hops all over the place to stay hidden. Clever, that. Built a time machine…a year ago? He's brilliant, utter genius to have managed it. Took them all back in time. Found their way back. Clever little humans. He thought time was fixed…something kept interfering. 'Course something did; me. Ha! Oh, I'm VERY good. Then he disappeared with the machine, nothing since. Oooh, and he's clever, and he's a scientist. First trip goes wrong, he'll step back and run tests. All sorts of tests. And tinker. It's what I'd do. Well, I'd tinker and then jump in feet first, but that's me. But he'll figure it out, that Time is in flux and can be changed. He's a clever man._

_ Need to find out when he sent people, and where. Need to find out what he's planning. Need to stop his time travelling meddlers, and then stop him. I'd say shouldn't be hard, but last time I said that I ended up plugging my brain into the core of a living planet to reboot its memory. Won that bet, though. Ha._

_ Anyways…Cobra. Mad, the lot of them. Mad and dangerous. Just the sort of people I usually run up against. Why've I never fought them?_

He eyed the humans around him, all fierce and stubborn and brave, all so obviously willing to do anything, even if they didn't know what _anything _entailed. All of them willing to die for their cause, all willing to die for their country and what they felt was right, but all of them clinging and fighting so fiercely to hang onto their mad, short, brilliant lives. _Maybe because I've never needed to. Oh, clever little brave, brilliant humans, perhaps I misjudged you. So why do I am I here now? Unless there's more here than just a mad genius._

"TIMBER!" The red-haired woman named Scarlett yelled suddenly, shaking the Doctor out of his reverie. A very large gray wolf, lifting his leg against the side of the TARDIS, started and looked guilty."NO! Bad! Bad Wolf!"

His hearts skipped a beat, and Time seemed to freeze around him, just for a moment, tinged with threads of gold. _Bad Wolf._

The Doctor spun to face Scarlett. "Why did you say that?"

She blinked. "Because he was…"

"But why did you use _those words?_"

"I don't know…because he's a wolf and he's being bad? Why? What's wrong?"

_Bad Wolf. _

_ I spread the words through time and space, to lead myself to myself._

_ Bad Wolf._

"Nothing." He turned away. "It's nothing. Anyway! Here we go, the TARDIS." He unlocked the door and flung it open. "And yes, it _is _bigger on the inside."

* * *

Alvin Kibbey, better known as "Breaker" "You'd best stop popping that gum or else" or "I swear to God, I didn't do anything, it just stopped working, please fix it you can fix it right?" was the undisputed IT god of the Pit. His ability to take a computer that had been utterly fried beyond all hope of repair (damage that usually turned out to be rooted in user error) and somehow nurse it and baby it and possibly perform ancient black magic rituals until he managed to salvage important data made him absolutely indispensable, and he knew it.

Breaker could take a pile of random electronic parts and a soldering iron and end up with a fully operational, ten-years-ahead-of-it's-time CCTV security system that was backed up on compact laser discs instead of bulky, error-prone videocassettes. He could take thirty dollars worth of parts from Radio Shack and rig up a nigh-undetectable audio surveillance system. He'd written his own hacking programs that could finagle him access into almost any system ever built, and had an uncanny knack for guessing passwords that almost always let him get into a system that his access programs couldn't. Had he not enlisted in the army, he probably would have been a multimillionaire simply from patenting a few of his programs and systems.

But that wasn't the point; the point was helping his country and making a difference. He didn't need millions of dollars. He just needed enough to live on, though he had invested in a few new ideas such as lithium-ion batteries and a new company called Apple. It never hurt to plan for retirement, after all.

Breaker was, without a doubt, one of the foremost experts on computer engineering and electrical communication technology on the planet. He knew this very well, and ruled the IT and communications departments in the Pit with an iron fist.

And, right now, standing in the machine called the TARDIS, he felt like a caveman looking at a jet engine. Someone had once said that true wisdom came from knowing you knew nothing. Breaker knew enough about technology to know that what he was looking at now was so far beyond anything humans had ever invented that the caveman analogy probably wasn't the best. A better one would be a chimpanzee looking at a jet engine, and maybe wondering if any part of it would be good to eat.

"Oh, my God." He muttered under his breath. "Oh, my _God."_

He reached out and touched the console almost hesitantly, and with the same sort of respectful awe that someone might show before, say, the Shroud of Turin or a cutting of the tree that Buddha reached enlightenment under. The Doctor, sprawled in the battered jump seat by the console, all arms, legs, wild hair and lanky height, his sneakers propped up on the console, seemed pleased by his reaction.

"Ten million years of Time Lord engineering." He grinned, leaned forward, and patted the console affectionately. "Most magnificent ship in the universe, she is."

The lights warmed slightly, and Breaker could have _sworn_ that the humming of machinery pitched up slightly in a way that sounded almost _happy._

"Oh, you know it's true." The Doctor patted the console again. "No need to be coy."

"Are you _talking _to it?"

"Her, not _it._ TARDIS' are alive." The Doctor leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. "We used to grow them by the hundreds. It takes thousands of years for a TARDIS to grow…normally…but Time Lords were patient. At the Academy the brightest students were trained as TARDIS pilots. It took decades to learn how to fly a TARDIS, graduate, and be assigned to one as a Time Agent. Boring stuff. So I sort of skipped the whole process. Snuck into a storage facility, and there she was." He ran a hand over the console again, his touch as light and affectionate as a lover. "Most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and the door was open. So I took her."

"You _stole _this thing?"

"Borrowed her. I always meant to take her back. Of course, it's been seven hundred years, and I've grown rather fond of her." A shadow passed over the Doctor's mobile, usually cheerful face. "And there's no one left to return her to."

"No one left?" Jaye echoed this softly. The Doctor's eyes-and they were old, old eyes, far too old for the face they were set in-went dark and haunted for a moment; Breaker had seen that look before. It was the same look that Storm Shadow got when someone brought up Mindbender. That was the look of someone who had endured unspeakable things, who'd _done _unspeakable things…

"_Seven hundred years?"_ Flint sputtered. "_Seven. Hundred. Years._ You're _seven hundred years old?!"_

And the moment was gone. The Doctor spun around, that usual manic grin back in place. "Nope! Nine hundred, actually. Well. Nine hundred and five, if you're counting."

"But…" Flint sputtered again.

Scarlett eyed the Doctor. "You _can't_ be older than thirty five."

The Doctor's grin widened. "I moisturize. Nine hundred and five. Cross my hearts. Time Lord, me. Can live practically forever, barring accidents. And even in the event of accidents, there are ways to cheat."

"…you're _nine hundred years old."_ Flint seemed to be stuck on this point. "_Nine hundred."_

"Whatever skin cream your people use, _I want some of it._" Covergirl was eying the central control console with much the same sort of expression that Breaker knew he was wearing.

"You're _nine hundred years old."_

The Doctor eyed Flint with some concern. "Somebody want to give him a jostle? I think his brain got stuck."

"He'll be fine." Jay patted Flint on the shoulder. "Just give him a minute."

"So when you were born, we were still in the _eleventh century."_ Shana paused. "No, wait…you're a time traveler. So it wouldn't be linear, would it?"

"Oh, _very _good. Nasty bit of history, the eleventh century. The castles! Don't get me started on the castles. Yes yes, all impressive and scenic, but terribly damp and drafty and you'd think no one in them had ever heard of bathing. They never tell you that bit when you read the stories; "William the Conqueror, who smelled like a wet dog that died and was left in the sun for a bit too long and who only changed his shirt once a week." Just once, I want to read a history book that leaves that bit in." The Doctor grimaced. "And you couldn't find decent chips _anywhere."_

"…William the Conqueror." Jaye repeated this, slowly. "You've met _William the Conqueror._"

"I still don't know what he did with the soap I gave him." The Doctor sighed. "Probably ate it. Judging by his smell, he'd never seen a bar of it before in his life. Oi! No touching!"

Courtney, not looking at all guilty, replaced the deck panel she'd slid aside to get a better look at the machinery underneath the console.

"Right. Ground rules. Rule number one; no one touches anything unless I tell you to. No offense, but there's not a one of you lot who'd have the faintest idea what you were fiddling with. So that little voice in the back of your head that says 'oi, I bet if I took this apart I could figure it out'? That voice is _not _your friend. On the other hand, that _is _a brilliant way to figure things out, but _not _when it comes to my TARDIS. Understood?"

"I still dunno why you don't have laser cannons."

"Rule two; no asking why I don't have laser cannons."

Beach gave the Doctor a long, considering sort of look. "Ah'm sayin' his arms would give out by forty. Any takers?"

Snake Eyes' hands moved. *You'd just stand on his back and make sure that they did.*

Beach grinned.

"Rule three; the Doctor does _not _do pushups, even if he's being shouted at by loud smelly rude drill instructors. _Especially _not then. Never was good at taking orders." The Doctor propped his feet back up on the console. "And rule four; anyone who tries to get the Doctor to do pushups gets left behind. Rule five; anyone who waits until halfway into the adventure and _then _tries to make the Doctor do pushups gets left on Tygian Six until the rest of us are done saving the world." The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Beach. "They call it the 'planetoid of eternal boredom'. Located on a large asteroid. Beings of crystal with silicon brains. Natural computers. They specialize in accounting. One hundred years ago they had their most exciting day ever." He spun slightly on his jump seat, hands in his pockets, eyeing Beach over the top of his glasses. "A decimal in the price code got moved one place to the left on a shipment of six billion tons of aluminum ore."

"Ah don't like this guy." Beach grimaced.

The Doctor grinned happily and spun back the other way. "Right! Bedrooms are down that way. Just pick whatever room suits your fancy; might be a bit spare at first but the old girl rather likes spoiling guests, so don't be surprised if she redecorates a bit for you. Kitchen is down past the bedrooms. Library is that way. I'm not sure where the swimming pool went, but last time I saw it was down past the library. It might turn up, it might not. Wardrobe room is down opposite the library. Any questions?"

A pause. Then "You _lost _the swimming pool?" Covergirl raised her eyebrows.

"Didn't lose. Just didn't use it much, so she put it in storage. Or moved it further back. Not really sure which. She doesn't always tell me where she's stuck things."

"You lost a swimming pool. A whole swimming pool."

"…Yeah. Look. TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. If she sees that a room isn't needed or isn't in use, she just tucks it away until she needs it later. And if she needs a new one she just pulls one up. More efficient use of energy, see. She doesn't bother keeping rooms about that aren't used often. " The Doctor eyed the console. "She seems to particularly like moving the swimming pool around. Not really sure why."

"…That is _so cool._" Covergirl grinned happily. "So she can generate any room, for any person or alien or whatever and make them comfortable, and then just tuck it away in a drawer when they leave. And if they come back or you need it, _hey, _just pull it out again and good to go. That is _so cool!_ I wish I had a garage that could do that. I could fit all the cars I wanted in it."

"…That's actually not a bad analogy. Oi! _No touching!_"

"What's this bit do?"

"I said n_o touching!"_

Beach just grinned proudly.

* * *

*Half a world away*

The lab was dark. Destro had gone with the Baroness for dinner and wine and, in all probability, mating., Chhlll'kti, better known as James Brown, Viper Number 24, squad 111, had thought he'd never leave. Destro had the irritating habit of working far into the night whenever he had a project going.

He dialed the stolen clearance code into the laboratory keypad and the door slid open. He padded through, shut the door, and triggered his shimmer field with a sigh of relief.

Humans were so…_soft. _All soft pink skin and soft clawless fingers and these weak, useless little teeth. It was hard to see how, in a few thousand years, they'd have insinuated themselves so thoroughly into almost every corner of the galaxy. Spreading, always spreading, mingling with other species and then spreading some more, infecting every culture they touched with their…their…_humanity, _all soft and trilling of _exploration _and _progress, _weak words, words that proper empire-builders saw for the weakness they were. And yet, those same soft little humans could become so _prickly _when threatened, as Thillani-kind had discovered when they'd attacked the soft little apes. And, for the first time in four million years of ruthless military expansion, they had _lost. _

Lost, to a race with no natural weapons, a race who'd taken to the stars not to seek honor and glory in battle, but just because it was _there._ It was a humiliation that could not stand. The Thillani-kind had fought back, had tried to go back and sterilize the human threat before it could spread. But they'd be stopped, defeated by the rogue Time Agent, the one they'd kill a thousand times but who would not die, by the Travelling Man, the strange man with the box, and by the yellow girl, the Travelling Man's Woman.

He clacked his mandibles in rage. The Travelling Man, the Man Who Would Not Die, and the Travelling Man's Woman. They'd broken the mighty army of the Thillani-kind, had thrown them back to their own time and destroyed the time-ships, but they hadn't been quite thorough enough. Some of the great time-ships had been powered down for repair on the ship-docks of their homeworld's moon, and they'd survived the cataclysm. Six time-ships had survived, and now they orbited in this backwater system, sun-side of the tiny inner planet, invisible against the massive nuclear fire that was the star designated _Sol. _They were relying on massive energy shields to keep them from burning in the heat of the star, which, conveniently enough, were powered by massive solar panels. A perfect, elegant system.

This wasn't just destroying an enemy before they could become an enemy, not any longer. This was _revenge. _This was for _honor. _Failure was unthinkable.

Earth. The world of the Travelling Man, the Man Who Would Not Die, and the yellow girl, the Travelling Man's Woman. And it would _burn._

What's more, it would burn at the hands of its own children. Chhll'kti had found the perfect instrument of the Earth's destruction; an organization of madmen, who wanted everything for their own, and who were not afraid to take it with fire and blood and iron. Under other circumstances he might have admired their goals, but they were human, and therefore the enemy. So he'd infiltrated, given the right little push _here _and _here, _and sent back regular reports to his commanders.

He examined the time machine quickly, and chirruped to himself, pleased. Destro was coming along better than he'd anticipated. For a race so stupid, humans did produce the occasional genius. He detached a small metal oval from his belt and quickly recorded an image of the machine to send to his commander, and clicked and chirruped a message.

"The human is nearly finished. Plan on schedule. He will dispatch time agents within a day to kill his enemies. Recommend aiding this venture; the humans designated _G.I. Joe _are potentially problematic. Then we can proceed. No sign of the Travelling Man."

Message transmitted, he triggered his shimmer field, grimacing as it smoothed and softened his features back into the flat, formless little face of a human. He'd be glad when this was over.


	8. Chapter 8

I don't think I've updated a fic this quickly in…well…a long time. The bunny for this one seems to have six-inch long barbed metal spikes instead of teeth. If only the bunnies for my original works would bite this hard and deep.

Just a note, BBC…pictures of Tom Baker in nothing but the scarf are also acceptable. Call me.

* * *

The humans were planning again.

"We know the lab in Australia has been abandoned, and we know from that reconnaissance mission that Snake Eyes and Scarlett ran last month that it's not in Destro's castle." Jaye was pacing. "We almost had it in Africa four months back, but it was gone when we got there and we've not heard a peep. He could be anywhere. We've been trying to gather intel for months, but there's not a whisper of him."

The Doctor, still sprawled on his jump seat, nudged a lever with the toe of his trainer and tweaked a dial.

"That machine uses a massive amount of power. I've been running checks for unusual power drain from power grids worldwide for the last four months, but there's nothing." Breaker shrugged. "I've also been tracking purchases of generators and large quantities of fuel from known Cobra subsidiaries, but nothing. I'm guessing that wherever he is, the power system is self-contained. Solar panels, probably. Possibly wind power. Or they're acquiring fuel through a source we've never heard of."

The Doctor pulled the keyboard over, typed in a string of numbers and symbols with one hand and flipped three switches.

"We've got access to satellite surveillance." Flint, who'd recovered from the shock of learning that the seemingly young alien whose spaceship time machine they were on was actually pushing a thousand, was tapping one toe. "We could look for solar panels or wind farms that aren't supposed be there."

"Couldn't he also be running it off of an internal nuclear reactor?" Covergirl was leaning against one of the coral supports.

Scarlett pursed her lips. "Possible, but unlikely. We've managed to keep Cobra from acquiring any useful amount of radioactive material so far. Because otherwise we'd be facing down nuclear warheads with Cobra Commander painted on them by now."

The Doctor tapped several icons on the display screen.

"How long would it take ya to look for solar or wind farms that ain't supposed to be there?" Beach raised his eyebrows at Breaker.

The Doctor examined the readout on the display screen.

"Depends. A couple of weeks? I can tweak one of my scanning programs…"

"He's in Siberia." The Doctor interjected. Everyone in the room, as one, turned slowly to stare at him. He grinned and spun the display screen around. "See? Right here where the little blinking dot is."

"...How in the…"

"Whut?"

"That's _incredible."_ Breaker looked like he was about to fall to his knees and start genuflecting.

"Not really. Just ran a simple scan for power spikes laced with vortex energy." _Ooh. Condescending. That's rude. _"But you were all being very clever too! All good ideas! No doubt would have found it if given enough time! So, shall we be off, then?"

"…_NOW?_ Just like that?" Covergirl's voice had risen in pitch a couple of octaves.

"We need equipment! Communicators, weapons…don't care what you say, Doctor, we aren't going in unarmed…gear, supplies…"

The Doctor sighed. "And now I remember why I don't normally take on soldiers. You won't need the half of that. Food won't be a problem; leave that to the TARDIS, and we can always make a quick stop somewhere. And I know better than to think any of you are unarmed right now, even if you all thought you were being very clever at hiding it. Those two right there," A gesture at Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes. "Probably have enough on them to outfit the lot of you, and you won't need it anyway because we _won't be killing everyone_. And do you _seriously _think that I can't manage to whip up a basic radio if required?" He snorted. "I was building radio equipment at the age of three out of the toys in the nursery."

He jumped to his feet and started fiddling with the controls. "So, where would you like to go first? Horsehead nebula? The center of the Andromeda Galaxy? The debris fields around Cestis Twelve? Or a little closer to home? Who fancies seeing a lightning storm on Jupiter? Or the Apollo Eleven landing site?" He leaned closer to Flint. "Good old Michael Collins. Everyone always forgets him. Splendid bloke. I took him a bottle of champagne when he was on the dark side of the moon. We played squash in court six. _Fantastic _poker player. I still technically owe him four million dollars." He frowned. "Turns out I'm a _really_ bad poker player when I'm drunk."

Hmm. And there were those disbelieving, blinking stares again. Rassilon, he _hated _starting over from scratch.

"Don't we kind of need to, you know, go stop Destro from killing us as babies?" Covergirl ventured.

"Time machine! We've got plenty of time to deal with that, and honestly what kind of a first trip is a quick hop over to Siberia? We need something _brilliant _to start off. I know just the thing!" He spun the date/time dial, entered a string of coordinates, flipped several switches, and hit a button. "And here we _go!"_ He grinned wildly, and pulled the lever.

The TARDIS lurched as it dematerialized; Jaye yelped as she pitched into Breaker, knocking both to the floor. Beachhead just widened his stance and braced himself against the wall. Flint grabbed onto the railing. Covergirl grabbed the support column she was leaning on. Scarlett, Snake Eyes, and Storm Shadow just flexed their knees slightly, riding out the turbulence easily.

The Doctor eyed them as they rematerialized. "Ninja. Always showing off."

"Tell me about it." Beach rumbled. "The scrawny little pain-in-my-ass over there is _still _on KP duty for the Dinner Roll Incident last week."

Storm Shadow raised his eyebrows. "That was _training._ Also, Red isn't a ninja."

"I can still give you a black eye." Shana smiled sweetly at Tommy, a look that fired every alarm system in the Doctor's hindbrain. "Want me to demonstrate?"

Snake Eyes snapped his fingers for attention. *Ten dollars on Shana.*

"No bet." Breaker shook his head.

"…Right." The Doctor interrupted loudly. "_Anyway." _He bounded over to the doors and pulled them both open with all the theatricality he could. "Saturn! You know, there are several civilizations that use Saturn as a tourist destination. Cruise liners settle into orbit for a few days, everyone _oohs _and _ahhs _andtakes pictures, maybe go for a spin past Jupiter, and on home. Sometimes they even go past Earth. Not supposed to interfere with the locals, though. Class five planet. Zoning regulations. Mind you, that doesn't always stop them, and then _I _have to."

For the first time since this lot of mad, noisy humans had trooped onto his TARDIS, there was profound silence behind him. Smiling to himself, the Doctor moved aside and let them crowd around the door to stare. He always liked this bit; the wonder and awe and joy of seeing such sights for the first time. He'd seen Saturn like this a hundred times; when he saw other people seeing it for the first time, he remembered exactly how magnificent and splendid and awe-inspiring the sight really was.

"Oh, my God." Jaye whispered this at last. "Oh, my God."

He'd parked them close to the orbit of Titan. Outside the TARDIS, the massive gas giant spun in the profound velvet blackness of space, the stars burning brilliantly against the profound darkness. The planet hung there before them, a great ball of muted oranges and pinks and creams, with a few high white clouds. The rings arched away on both sides, banded in brown and white and yellow, tan and cream and orange. They could see several moons; larger dots of brilliance against the endless velvet dark. Several were full. Others were just silvery crescent slivers against the black.

"We're in space." Covergirl said this in utter wonder. "_Outer. Space."_

"How are we still breathing?" Tommy tentatively waved a hand outside the door.

"The TARDIS is protecting us." The Doctor leaned against the wall, tucking his hands into his pockets.

"I've seen pictures." Scarlett's eyes were round. "In books and magazines. But…"

"Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced." The Doctor murmured.

"John Keats." Flint nodded, never taking his eyes off the planet slowly spinning before them.

"So." The Doctor sauntered back over to the control panel. "On with the mission, then?"

No one paid the slightest bit of attention to him. The Doctor's grin widened, and he leaned against the console, looking out the door over the heads of the little group.

"Is it all like this?" Breaker asked at last.

"Oh, yes." The Doctor smiled. "Terrible sometimes. Terrifying, on occasion. But always marvelous." Unseen, he slipped the Sonic Screwdriver out of his pocket, aimed it at the tall menacing ninja in black, and did a quick medscan.

He examined the readings and raised his eyebrows. He swiveled the display screen over, slid the keypad closer to himself, and typed for a few seconds. When the full medscan readout popped up on the screen, his eyebrows climbed a bit further.

"Oooh." He muttered under his breath. "That must have hurt."

Burn scars over eighty percent of the left half of the face; lesser but still significant scarring on the right side. The damage continued down to his collarbones; whatever fire had caused the damage, his scalp and the skin below his neck must have been protected. Probably by a helmet and body armor. The vocal cords were almost entirely gone, and what was left was twisted by scar tissue.

The TARDIS had a medbay, but it wasn't set up to handle anything like this. Had the injuries been new, there were ways to stimulate the tissue to heal quickly and without scarring, but this…the medscan judged the injury to be older than five years…this he couldn't do anything for. He shook his head and closed the medscan. A Time Lord suffering such injuries would have lapsed into a healing coma to repair the damage. For a human…the recovery must have been excruciating. The Doctor eyed Snake Eyes with a new measure of respect. _He's a strong man, to have endured that. Not all could. _

"So!" He shoved his hands in his pockets and bounced on the balls of his feet. "Ready to go save your own lives now, or do you want to gawk a bit longer? If you _really _want a sight, there's an electrical storm in the Orion nebula right now, a storm a billion times the size of your earth in a cloud of gas surrounding a baby star. Or we could go see the Cygnus Omega system! Seven stars, with one planet. Most complicated orbit you'll ever see. It's made generations of astrophysics students cry when their professors set them to reduce the orbit to orbital mechanics equations. I should know. I was one of them."

Beach reluctantly tore his eyes away from the splendid view. "Ah don't particularly like the idea of my ma trying to protect little baby me from some jackass Cobra troops. Best go take care of that."

"Well then." The Doctor started flipping switches and adjusting the destination coordinates. "Off to Siberia! Oh…best close the door. Really don't want those open in the Time Vortex. You think being carsick is bad, you've never travelled the Time Vortex without protection."


	9. Chapter 9

I'm playing a game called "How many food-based references to other Doctors can I make in one fic." I've already gotten two in. The first was the Tenth Doctor's obsession with marmalade and jam. The second was the Eleventh Doctor's favorite treat; Jammy Dodgers. Next one is in this chapter. It's not exactly subtle. See if you can find it.

Really, the Doctor has had a bit of an obsession with sweets in all of his incarnations. He changes his face, but he really doesn't change all _that _much.

* * *

Scarlett might not have been a ninja, but she'd spent enough time training with one that she was close. In the turbulence of the Vortex…the Doctor had spent about ten minutes explaining what the Vortex was, exactly, while using a lot of very big words, but the most she'd gathered was "a shortcut through time and space"…this came in handy. As her friends were clinging to various surfaces and getting pitched around every which way, she and Snake and Tommy rode out the turbulence easily.

"Is it _always _that rough?" Breaker looked mildly queasy.

"Oi!" The Doctor gave him a hurt look. "She's designed for a crew of six. I have to make do by myself. Would _you _rather fly her?"

"…Point taken."

"Why?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at Beach. "What?"

"Why do you have to make do by yourself? Why don't you have a crew?"

Scarlett saw that look flicker on the Doctor's face again. The cheerful mask broke, and for just a moment she could see all nine centuries of life written across that incongruously young face. It was gone in the blink of an eye, and he was grinning again. "Bit of a renegade, me. Never really got along with the other children, you could say. It's better this way. Fewer people to get in the way."

_Then why did you invite us along, I wonder? _Scarlett didn't say anything; she knew there was more to this story, more to this strange man who looked so human. She read people well; she _was _in intel, after all, and besides she was engaged to a mute man who went about in a mask. She was _good _at reading body language, and there were moments, tiny brief little moments, when she caught a sense of deep pain and loneliness from this man who called himself only "the Doctor." A young face, but so old, and behind that cheerful mask lay incalculable pain, deep secrets, and even something that was huge and dangerous and dark, something she saw glittering deep in his eyes in those brief moments when the mask slipped.

She also knew, however, that this wasn't the time or place to pry.

"Let's see, know I stuck it in here…" The Doctor shifted one of the pieces of deck grating and hauled out a trunk. He flipped the lid open, tossed aside a glass ball that appeared to contain several wrinkled, inhuman women screaming in rage, a coil of rope, and what appeared to be the hand off of a suit of armor. "Aha!" He triumphantly produced several complicated-looking electronic things, a pair of glasses of the sort a jeweler might wear with magnifying glasses attached to the frame, a small collapsible telescope, and what appeared to be a bag of gummy candy. All of these were tucked into his pockets. Shana blinked; several of those things had been bulky and a couple had wires sticking every which way, but the coat didn't noticeably bulge when they were tucked away.

The Doctor tossed the other items back into the trunk, slammed the lid closed, and slid it back into the storage compartment. "Right then!" He bounced upright and started fiddling with the controls.

"I would hate to see that man after he drank some of Scarlett's coffee." Flint muttered under his breath.

"Technically, it is impossible to _drink _her coffee." Tommy pointed out. "It usually needs chewing."

"It takes far less water to make good coffee than most people think." Shana said calmly.

The Doctor bounded across the console room and yanked open the door. "_Right! _Off we go!" He vanished outside; a few snowflakes swirled inside and promptly melted. "Oi! _Snow! _Real snow! Brilliant!" He stuck his head back inside, grinning wildly. "You lot might want to pop on back to the wardrobe and grab a few coats. Bit nippy out. Won't bother me, but you humans can't handle a bit of cold to save your lives." He vanished again.

"Ah'm gonna punch him." Beach said this to no one in particular. "Right in that noisy yapper of his. Dunno when, but it's gonna happen."

*Seven Minutes Later*

The word "wardrobe" hadn't really covered it. "vast two-story room packed with clothes" would have been more appropriate. Fortunately, they found coats right inside the door. Whether this was simply coincidence or the supposedly sentient TARDIS attempting to be helpful, Scarlett wasn't sure. However, the box of gloves, hats, and scarves sitting open right below the coats was pushing it into the second category. (The scarf collection, upon perusal, included one striped one that was long enough to be _three _scarves; honestly, who could ever _wear _something like that?)

Attired more appropriately for Siberia, they cautiously exited the TARDIS. It was cold outside, but not terribly. It was, after all, spring. It was snowing, but not heavily. The Doctor, snowflakes caught in his hair (Scarlett was wondering how many tins of hair gel he went through on a weekly basis to get it to do that) was aiming the Sonic Screwdriver in apparently random directions and examining the readouts as if they actually meant something.

Scarlett looked around. They were in a clearing in the middle of a taiga forest, huge ancient trees towering over them, pine and spruce needles black against the dull grey sky. The grass underfoot was brown, brittle, and shattered with a crunch underfoot. The air smelled like snow and pine. On the horizon, above the trees, mountains loomed. Great sharp-edged shoulders of stone, capped with white snow, they served to make the landscape feel impossibly huge and the humans standing in it impossibly insignificant. Old stories of chicken-footed huts and hags flying in mortars flickered through Scarlett's head.

The clearing itself was suspiciously perfect; a treeless circle about a hundred feet across where nothing but grass grew. There weren't even any tree stumps. A rough gravel road wound off into the trees.

"We're on top of something." She said aloud. "No trees. Not even any stumps or shrubs, and it's too perfectly round."

Tommy nodded. "I can hear machinery. It's coming from under our feet. Underground base." He looked around. "This one must be new. I've never been here before."

The Doctor grinned happily. "Oh, _very _good. I'm picking up ventilation shafts a few hundred meters off in the trees." He aimed the Sonic Screwdriver at the ground. "_Massive _hydraulics just underneath us." He tucked the Sonic back into the inner pocket of his jacket. "We're standing on top of a lift. This whole clearing drops down. It's deadlocked, though. I can't activate it with the Sonic." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "So, we're standing on top of a giant underground base, and we need to slip in, preferably unnoticed. Any ideas?"

As one, everyone turned to eye the two ninja. Storm Shadow grinned. "I think that's our cue, brother."

Snake Eyes interlaced his fingers and extended his arms away from him, cracking his knuckles. *Ventilation shafts, you said?*

"I did." The Doctor was still grinning. "This way."

"What about that?" Covergirl pointed to the TARDIS, looking very much out of place against the dark trees and brown, snow-dusted grass. A few snowflakes were collecting on the roof.

"She'll be fine." The Doctor shrugged.

"Well, it's not exactly what you'd call _inconspicuous, _is it?"

The Doctor eyed the blue police box and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I've been meaning to fix that…can't be helped. She'll be fine. We won't be long, and there's nothing around here that could damage her. Tough old girl. You coming or what?" The Doctor was almost vibrating in place and visibly leaning towards the trees in the direction of what was apparently one of the ventilation shafts he'd detected.

"Crazy." Courtney shook her head fell in line just in front of Beach Head. "He's crazy. And we're following him. _Why _are we following him, exactly?"

"I have a very persuasive face." The Doctor's voice was cheerful as he jogged off.

"Or we're all just that dumb." Jaye sighed. "I haven't figured out which, yet, but when I do I'll let you know, Court."

"Pessimists. All of you." The Doctor shook his head sadly. "_Pessimists."_

*Fourteen minutes later*

The ventilation shaft proved to be housed in a small corrugated steel shack, presumably to keep snow and ice from clogging it. It was padlocked, which slowed Snake Eyes down by approximately three seconds; the Doctor didn't even have the Sonic Screwdriver out before the ninja had gotten the lock to turn and was inside.

The ventilation shaft was a pipe about three feet in diameter, with heavy screening bolted securely over it. The screening, however, proved not to be a match for a K-bar, and was sliced away and discarded in about another second and a half, after which Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes disappeared down the pipe without a word. The Doctor conceded to look mildly impressed.

Storm Shadow reappeared about five minutes later, wriggling his way up and out of the pipe with the sort of agility usually seen only in monkeys. "Drops straight down for about ten meters, then branches off five different ways." He produced a small grappling hook and a long coil of thin, strong nylon rope. "There are some fans down there to help circulate air, but nothing too difficult to get past." He hooked the grapple securely to a pine tree just outside the door and tossed the rope down the pipe. "Along the leftmost branch, there's a vent that comes out in an unoccupied garage. Snake Eyes is scouting ahead from there."

Breaker raised his eyebrows. "No security systems?"

Tommy grinned, that slow, wolfish, self-satisfied grin that made hardened mercenaries and black ops agents across the globe wet their pants and seriously consider the pros and cons of becoming monks. "There was a laser grid."

The Doctor's eyebrows rose another fraction of an inch. "Was?"

Tommy's grin widened. "Was."

"No alarms?"

"Not any longer."

"Blimey." The Doctor scratched one sideburn. "Usually I'm the one who has to deal with that sort of thing." He frowned. "Feels _weird."_

"Ninja." Tommy smirked. "Can you manage?" He tilted his head at the rope; the question was clearly directed at the Doctor. "I can carry you if you can't climb."

The Doctor gave him an insulted look, grabbed the rope, hopped over the edge and started lowering himself down without any apparent effort. Beachhead's eyebrows rose.

"Time Lord." The Doctor's voice echoed up from the pipe. "More highly evolved muscular fibers. Good deal stronger than I look. I was climbing down cramped little tunnels into secret bases before your grandparent's grandparents were so much as _thought _of. I practically _invented _climbing down damp unpleasant tunnels into secret bases. Actually, I rather think I _did _invent it."

"Well, _excuuuse _me." Tommy huffed, but followed the Time Lord down the ventilation shaft.

Several gouges of the sort left by climbing claws and one broken-off knife wedged in the seam between two pipe sections on the inside of the shaft told Shana that there had been some rather impressive ninja gymnastics to slip past the laser grid. When they got to the bottom, the Doctor shimmied his way into the leftmost pipe with the ease of someone quite used to crawling through access shafts.

There was a large ventilation fan a few yards down the shaft, turning lazily. It was easy enough to hold the blades still for a moment and slip through, though Beach, who was the broadest across the shoulders of any of them, had to wriggle and squeeze a bit. Another forty or so yards along, they found the vent. One of the ninja had carefully removed it and shifted it to one side.

The floor was a good fifteen foot drop. However, someone had thoughtfully parked a semi just underneath. Scarlett hopped down, landed on the roof of the trailer, jumped over onto the roof of the cab, hopped down on the hood, and then onto the floor.

"Show off." Covergirl whispered this to her several seconds later, as she landed on the cement floor a good deal less gracefully.

Snake Eyes chose that moment to materialize out of the shadows between a skid loader and a pickup. Scarlett smiled slightly to herself as the Doctor started when the ninja appeared beside him, apparently from thin air.

"Do they _always _do that?" He pulled the Sonic Screwdriver out, flicked it on, and began slowly turning in a circle. "Going to give me a heart attack one of these times, you are."

"_SHHH!" _Six Joes shushed the Time Lord simultaneously. Even Snake Eyes put a finger to his lips.

"Enemy base. Be _quiet._" Beachhead hissed. "Do you _wanna _give us away?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

*This way. Lab.* Snake Eyes signed. *No guards.* He shook his head at this, quite clearly unable to believe that anyone could be quite so stupid.

"Well, why would you have guards this far in?" The Doctor had at least lowered his voice. "You have guards at the doors, to keep people from getting in. You don't need them _inside _the place. Do you lot place guards at every server farm and lab in _your _secret underground base?"

"Yes." Beachhead rumbled. "We do."

"…Ah. My, you lot _are _paranoid."

As it turned out, they did have to spend a few minutes hiding in a maintenance closet as a squad of vipers ambled by, but they didn't meet any serious resistance. The lab was behind a large set of stainless steel doors, and a small sign above the keypad read "Research One".

Humming happily to himself, the Doctor pointed the Sonic Screwdriver at the keypad. A few seconds of buzzing later, the door slid open. Both Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes eyed the tool with the sort of calculating expressions that Scarlett had last seen when she and Snake Eyes had been at a museum with a display of antique Japanese swords.

Most women probably did not have to argue with their fiancée about whether or not it was acceptable to break into a museum and steal a sword just because it was engraved with the symbol of their ninja clan. Then again, most women probably couldn't fracture a human skull with a spin kick, either.

"Don't even think about it." The Doctor didn't even glance at the ninja. "Like I told your father…seven thousand settings and no user's manual."

The door slid open. The lights slowly flickered on. The Joes blinked.

"Holy shit." Covergirl cursed. "Holy _shit."_

The lab was huge, easily fifty feet by fifty feet, and with a ceiling that soared at least twenty. Half-finished projects were sitting all over the place; indecipherable, complicated assemblies of electronic parts and metal and ceramic and plastic and wires. Equipment lay all over the place. There was sheet metal stacked in a corner, and reels of wire. What looked like a miniature blast furnace was set up against one wall. And over on the other wall was the familiar great bulk of the time machine, next to a smaller, sleeker thing that looked rather similar.

The Doctor was looking at the place like Christmas had just come early. "Oh, that is _beautiful!"_ He snatched out his glasses and slid them on. "A _weather manipulator! _Oh, that's _gorgeous! _Oh, look!" He pounced on a complicated contraption of glass tubes and copper "A lightning trap! Freeze a bolt of electricity dead in place. Oh, a _matter duplicator! _I had no _idea _he invented one this early. Oh, and look at _those!" _He bounded over to the two time machines and in the blink of an eye was buried up to the shoulders in the open side panel of the larger one. "Oh, look at _that! _That's not engineering. That's _art!_ My God, _look at it. _The very first vortex stabilizer ever made by human hands! To _see _this! To see something like this in your head, and make it a reality! That's not brilliant. That's beyond brilliant. That's _genius. _He must have machined the parts himself. And look! He must have had the vacuum tubes custom made! _Blown glass! _Oh, that's _gorgeous!"_

In the blink of an eye, he'd extracted himself from the larger time machine, flopped down flat on his back, and slid under the smaller, newer machine. He continued his enthusiastic praise while examining the exposed wiring. "Oh, _brilliant! _He's using _fiber optic cables _to hook up the thermic regulator! Won't invent flexible silicon microwire for another three hundred years, so he's made do, and fiber optic technology is _still _way ahead of this time. _Brilliant! _Also, he built a _thermic regulator! _In _1988! _That's like a chimpanzee managing to build a working calculator! It would be a _crime _to damage this thing. _Vandalism!_"

The Joes blinked. This wasn't how military operations were supposed to go. There was usually a good deal more wiring C4 to everything in the lab, and less praising your enemies.

"I thought that's what we came here to do?" Flint ventured.

The Doctor extracted himself from the innards of the machine and shimmied out from underneath it. "Well, yes." He jumped to his feet and dusted himself off. "I just said it'd be a crime to damage it. I didn't say that would stop me. Oh, _look! _He's got a gravity gun!"

"Excuse me, but could we maybe figure out where and when he sent people to kill us as children?" Flint narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, _fine._" The Doctor reluctantly tore himself away from the complicated contraption that looked like nothing so much as an oversized Star Trek phaser. He examined the old time machine briefly, then popped open an access panel. "If I'm right…and I usually am…I should be able to pull all previous coordinates out of the central hard drive…"

Numbers started blinking on the little screen beside the big red button. The Doctor extracted himself from the innards of the machine, popped up, and pressed his Sonic Screwdriver against an access port. "Bingo…oh, what's _this?_" He pulled himself up onto the operator's seat on the new time machine and started typing furiously on the keyboard set into the console. "Oh, that _is _interesting." He jumped down and in a heartbeat was buried to his waist in circuitry.

It was at just that moment that an alarm began shrieking. The Doctor ignored it; he was probing deeper into the mass of wires.

"Okay, time to go." Scarlett grabbed at the back of the Doctor's coat, but he dug in his heels.

"Just a bit longer! There's something not quite right here…" His voice was muffled. "Oh, that is _not _supposed to be there…"

Beach grabbed the smaller man and physically dragged him out of the machine, protesting all the while. "Either move it, or I _carry _you, scrawny."

"Too late." Tommy narrowed his eyes. "We've got incoming."

The doors slid open again. Vipers boiled through. Both ninja had already vanished. Scarlett counted thirty Vipers before as many machine guns were pointed in her direction. The Joes instinctively dove for the nearest cover, firearms out, ready for the kind of valiant last stand that would make King Leonidas proud.

"Hello!" The Doctor hadn't moved. He was still standing in front of thirty-something armed men, smiling brightly. He held the small bag of gummy candies out towards the Vipers. "No need for those, really. We surrender unconditionally. Take me to your leader. Fancy a jelly baby?"


	10. Chapter 10

_ The blue box. _

If Chhll'kti had been in his natural form, the hairs on the back of his thorax would have been standing on end, barbed tips upright to discourage predators. With the shimmer field molding his body into the soft little form of a human, he was sweating, and his heart was thumping more rapidly than normal.

_The blue box. The Travelling Man. _

He'd recognized it as soon as he'd seen it. He'd been assigned to the biweekly supply convoy to the small rail depot about forty miles from the base. As they'd been returning to the base, they'd come through the trees and there it had been, sitting innocently on the elevator platform. Such a small thing, it was. It didn't look dangerous at all, a small blue box sitting there in the snow. But as small and innocent as it looked, it carried the promise of ruin.

And _then, _just when the box had been secured and sweeps of the facility had been started, the alarms had gone off. He'd known, then, that the Travelling Man was in the lab. When he'd attached the nano-charge to the vortex stabilizer on the new time machine, he'd set it to send a signal to the security system if anyone attempted to remove it. But no human would notice it; the nano-charge was the size of a grain of rice, and had been carefully concealed within the vortex stabilizer itself.

Squad 111 was assigned to sweep levels four through six. When the alarms went off, Chhll'kti slunk his way into a supply closet, locked the door, triggered his shimmer field, and triggered his communicator.

"Lord Commander." He clicked. "I must speak with the Lord Commander _immediately._ This is agent Chhll'kti. Priority assignment, verification 447-321."

A pause, and then one of the communication drones replied. "This is an unscheduled communication. State reason."

"The blue box. It's _here._"

Another pause. The next clicking voice to sound over the communicator was that of the Honorable Lord Commander. "Agent Chhll'kti."

"Lord Commander. He's _here. _The Travelling Man." Chhll'kti tried to smooth down the hairs on the back of his thorax, and was only marginally successful. "With the blue box."

Another pause. "Is the machine compromised?"

"Unknown, Lord Commander."

"Find out. And find out how much he knows. Report all information to me immediately. We will advance the plan as necessary."

"Order accepted, Lord Commander."

"And Chhll'kti…if you manage to slay the Travelling Man…the greatest of honor shall be yours, until the universe ends. You would be remembered for all of time as the warrior who killed the Travelling Man, from one side of the universe to the other. The empress herself would give you one of her daughters as brood-mate."

"Understood, Lord Commander."

* * *

Alfred Zambuky, of Viper Squad 110, was confused.

This didn't happen to him very often, being confused. His job duties were fairly straightforward; obey orders, shoot people who shouldn't be there, intimidate the occasional civilians. Sure, his job occasionally included such tasks as "Drive the giant snake-shaped water craft in the attack on New York City" or "Dig up Napoleon's grave for DNA samples", but generally speaking things worked a certain way. When enemy soldiers showed up, you shot them, or attempted to. The Joe team, in particular, _never _surrendered without an extended, vicious fight.

He had never before, in all of his years of service with Cobra, been offered gummy candy by a man he was pointing a gun at.

"What?" He blinked.

"Jelly baby. They're sweets. Quite good." The strange suited man popped one in his own mouth. "I used to eat them all the time. Forgot I still had a bag. Fortunately the TARDIS' storage compartments are time-locked, so they haven't gone stale. Anyway, we're surrendering, so you can put the guns away and take us to your boss. Hello! I'm the Doctor, by the way." He stuck out his hand, smiling. After a moment, he sighed and lowered it. "Rude. Just _rude._"

"…_What?" _Al lowered his rifle slightly.

"_WHUT?" _

Al felt his testicles attempt to retreat up into his abdominal cavity. There was no mistaking that Alabama bellow, and he still had vivid memories of what the man attached to that bellow had done to six of his squad mates last month in the Amazon rain forest.

"_MAH ASS WE'RE SURRENDERIN'! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED MIND?"_

"They don't look like they're surrendering." Al raised his rifle again. "Shoot the loud one first. Do _not _let him get his hands on you; it took the janitorial crew six hours to get the walls clean last time."

The Doctor sighed. "_Soldiers. _Oi! You lot! _Surrender _usually means come out with hands up and all that. We're surrounded and outnumbered. Trying to fight your way out is only going to result in people getting hurt and dying needlessly. I know what I'm doing. _Trust me._"

"You have a plan?"

Al's testicles gave a whimper of remembered pain and took up residence behind his spleen. That voice belonged to the redhead who'd kicked him in the crotch three months back in Africa. He'd spent the next twenty minutes whimpering and throwing up, and the doctors told him that he'd probably never have children.

The Doctor shrugged. "Sort of. Look, just trust me. I _do _know what I'm doing. Please. Just _trust me. _I swear to you, I will get us out of this, but you have to trust me."

There was a long, tense, pregnant moment of profound silence. Then, very slowly, one of the Joes stood slowly up, his hands raised, and took a step forwards.

"_BREAKER! THE FUCK YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"_

"I trust him." Breaker took a few careful steps forward, set his handgun on the floor, and nudged it forward a bit with one foot. "I don't know why, but I trust him. And he's right. If we have to fight our way out of this, our chances aren't good right now."

"That's a good chap!" The Doctor clapped Breaker on the shoulder. "Now, the rest of you. And then _you _lot take me to James McCullen. Someone's been tampering with his time machine, and it wasn't me."

"McCullen…" Al wrinkled his forehead. He'd never been the brightest bulb in the fixture, and he knew it. He was more the 'large, strong, and liked to be told what to do' type than 'clever'. "You mean Destro?"

The Doctor sighed again. "Yes. Destro, James McCullen, Mary Queen of Scots…whatever he's calling himself right now. Come _on, _you lot. Out of hiding, weapons down. We're _surrendering, _remember?"

There were a few moments of frantic whispering from behind the soldering station. Slowly and very reluctantly, the Joes emerged, looking almost as confused as Al felt.

"Ah'm gonna kill him." Beachhead was growling under his breath. "Ah'm gonna _kill him."_

"Splendid!" The Doctor grinned happily. "Now, take me to your leader! You know, I _never _get tired of saying that."

* * *

The Doctor was old.

No one really understood this. Not even his companions, his dear brave, loyal, brilliant companions. No one could understand it any longer, because he was the last. The only Time Lord left in all the universe. Even Jack…Jack might understand someday. _Would _understand someday, but right now, even after all he'd lived through, he was less than a quarter the Doctor's age.

Nine hundred years was a lie. Well, not precisely a _lie…_he _was_ nine hundred years old, if you went by the Zorstraxian calendar. Of course, no one had _used _the Zorstraxian calendar in four hundred years, but still. Women got to lie about their age.

In fact, he'd been one thousand and seventy four as of his eighth body, and that had been two hundred years ago. Jack? Jack was two, two hundred and fifty, give or take a decade.

By Gallifreyan or Earth standards, his true age was close to thirteen hundred. He'd looked into the eyes of gods and demons. He'd faced monsters straight from the darkest pits of human fears. He was The Travelling Man. The Traveller from Beyond Time. Ka Faraq Gatri, Destroyer of Worlds. The Oncoming Storm. The Old One. He Whose Name Dare Not Be Mentioned. The Dark One. Predator of the Daleks. And the first of his many aliases, the one he'd given himself, the one that his friends and enemies alike knew him by…the Doctor.

The term wasn't entirely honorary. He'd accumulated so many advanced degrees over the centuries that the list of things he _wasn't _a legitimate doctor of was shorter than the list of things he did hold certifications in.

He was a graduate of the Prydonian chapter of the Academy of Gallifrey. Prydonian chapter members had been renowned on Gallifrey for their deviousness and cunning; "Never turn your back on a Prydonian," the saying had once been. The Prydonian chapter had turned out Lord Presidents. Scientists who'd cracked the secrets of the universe itself. The Prydonian chapter had taught women like the Rani and men like the Master, who could bring planets and civilizations low with nothing but their brains, a bit of charisma, and forty quid worth of electronics. And even these brilliant, dangerous children of the organization acknowledged freely that the Doctor was the most cunning, cleverest, most brilliant, and most devious member the chapter who had ever lived.

People looked at him and saw an affable, slightly mental, rather young (for the last few incarnations, anyway) man. They didn't see the vast amount of experience and knowledge that was stored inside his skull. They didn't see the way that he saw _everything, _how he could look at a situation and fit all the little seemingly unconnected details together into a single, brilliant whole. Some people thought outside the box. The Doctor thought circles around the box in twelve different dimensions and then turned the box inside out and thought _through _it.

He'd always had the wanderlust, never had been able to stay still for long. He'd traveled so very far, and had seen so very, very many things. And all of that experience and all that thirteen hundred years of study, all of that cunning and brilliance and deviousness made him the man he was. He was the man who could end a brilliant political career with six words. The man who could end a war that had echoed through all of time and space single-handedly, if at a terrible cost. He was the man who could make the choice to do that, and then push the button, knowing full well that he was irrevocably dooming his own people in the process. He was the man who could look a god of destruction in the eye and then trap it outside of time in an inescapable prison, dooming it to die of old age after five thousand of years of torment. The man who could stand before the devil himself, look the beast in the eye, and then smile and throw the creature into the heart of a black hole.

He sometimes accused himself of being thick, of not remembering something right away that he should have. But the problem wasn't that he was thick; it was that he was _too _clever. There was so much stored away in his head that it was difficult to keep track of it all sometimes. But then someone would say the right word, or he'd see a color or a shape or _something, _and it would jolt the vast repository of knowledge that was his memory in the right way to make things all fall into place.

That was part of why he liked to have companions with him, actually. They had a wonderful habit of saying the right thing at the right time.

And so now, as thirty armed soldiers marched him and his rather surly companions to meet the man named James McCullen, he was doing what he did best. He was _thinking. _

The soldiers with him thought him mad. But he wasn't. He understood human psychology better then Freud, who incidentally had been a _really _sore loser at chess. The Doctor knew that when someone was confused, particularly someone who was used to taking orders, they sought to make their problem someone _else's _problem. Prisoners aren't supposed to offer their captors candy, and they aren't supposed to look perfectly happy to be taken prisoner. _Let the higher-ups deal with the problem, _the confused henchman thought. _I don't get paid enough for this._

People often wondered later why they'd gone along with the madman in the blue box. One of the Doctor's little secrets was simple Gallifreyan biology; his race was mildly telepathic. Not on a high level; he needed physical contact and concentration to actually read minds, but he _did _project a very low-level psychic field around himself. Creatures close enough for him to talk to them found themselves inexplicably inclined to listen to him. He was the The Man who Talked, but when he talked, people _listened, _if only enough for him to extract vital information from them. It was one of his greatest weapons.

And so, unseen behind his smile, his brain was working, six steps ahead of everyone else around him. He felt the timelines, mind racing ahead down avenues of possibility and probabilities, calculating the outcomes every action could lead to.

The soldiers herded them through a large sliding door into a control room of sorts; CCTV cameras lined one wall. There were control consoles neatly arranged in lines, and top-of-the line computers were everywhere. And standing by the security monitors, arms crossed and managing to look distinctly put out right through a steel mask, was a man who _had _to be James McCullen.

"Excellent work, men." The Scottish brogue confirmed the Doctor's suspicions. "You will be rewarded appropriately. Were these all you captured?"

"Yes, sir."

Destro pressed his fingertips against one temple. "If they got into my lab without tripping any alarms, they have at least one ninja with them. Do you see a ninja here?"

"No, sir." The Vipers shifted nervously and glanced at the corners of the room, as if a ninja would appear right out of the shadows.

Destro reached for a microphone and keyed it. "As of now, assume an enemy ninja is at large. Search pattern delta. Electrify the ventilation ducts."

The microphone crackled. "Yes, sir."

"You might also want to have them look for the spy tampering with your time machine." The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Unless _you're _the one who wired an electron microcharge into the temporal stabilizer, and I don't think a clever man like you would do that."

Destro rounded on him. "_What?_ Who the _bloody hell _are you, anyway?"

"Hello." The Doctor extended a hand. "I'm the Doctor." He frowned at the other man. "Have we met before? You seem _really _familiar."

"I think I'd remember meeting you."

"Yeah, I'd think I'd remember meeting a bloke who goes about with…" The Doctor leaned forward, quick as a flash, and swiped his index finger over the nose of Destro's mask. Several firearms were leveled at him, but he ignored this. He licked his finger and rolled his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "…A beryllium steel mask. Did you ever do any newsreels? No? Hmm. Because your nose looks _incredibly _familiar."

"Doctor?" Destro folded his arms. "Of what?"

"Everything." The Doctor eyed the other man for a moment. "Oh, I _promised _myself I wouldn't do this, but I can't keep doing this any longer...you're _James McCullen!" _He scrabbled in a pocket until he extracted a small book. "You _have _to sign this! Don't read it, because I don't think you've written it yet, but you will. _On the Creation and Stabilization of Timespace Vortexes._ THE definitive proof of time travel as a concrete fact in human history! You single-handedly advance the human understanding of time more than any other scientist before or since! _Genius! _Absolute _genius! _Possibly _the _greatest mind of your time, right up there with Einstein and Newton and Curie in a pantheon of the great human scientists! Did you know that three thousand years from now Time Agents will _still _be required to read your work? _Brilliant! _You're absolutely _brilliant! _Mental too, but still. _Brilliant!_ Did you ever do any magazines? No? Right around the ears, too. The ears are ringing bells._"_

Destro blinked for several seconds. "You know what a temporal stabilizer is?"

"Of _course _I do. Can't time travel without one, or the vortex would collapse in on itself…"

"…and form a singularity that would throw you and your time machine into oblivion." Destro finished.

"_Exactly!" _The Doctor bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet. "Which is why the microcharge wired to the temporal stabilizer in your new machine is a bit troubling. Detonate that at the precise millisecond when you're opening a vortex and you'd form a singularity big enough to crack this planet open like an egg. Did I run into you at a conference somewhere? I like to go to scientific conferences around this time. They're a riot. You lot couldn't even resolve quantum mechanics and general relativity yet."

"You're from the future, then?" Destro seemed intrigued. "Why are you working with _them?" _This last word dripped disdain, and he gestured at the captured Joes as he said it. "The blue box I've got quarantined in research two…your ship? This microcharge…where is it?"

"_Oh, _but you're _brilliant!"_ The Doctor crowed gleefully. "Of course I'm from the future. You wouldn't notice it very easily yourself. Check between the input cables that link it to the gravity drive. Temporal storm dropped me out of the time vortex slap bang in their base." He raised his eyebrows. "But that's not your biggest problem right now, is it? Because an electron microcharge isn't something this planet will have for another thousand years. So you've got someone who works here who should not be here. Someone who's using you. And are you _sure _we've never met, because you look _really _familiar."

"I think it would be difficult to forget you, Doctor."

"Well, yeah. I am sort of amazing on occasion." The Doctor grinned. "So. How about letting me and my friends go, then?"

"Why should I?" Destro's voice was cold. "I was having a lovely evening until you disturbed me. And now that you've given me the information I need to fix the meddling done to my ship, what use are you to me?"

The Doctor smiled, a sly, thin little smile. "Because you still have someone here who shouldn't be. And I'm the only one who can help you find him. And you already know that, don't you? And besides, as you so astutely pointed out, there is still a ninja loose on this base."

He shoved his hands into his pockets. "The thing about ninja…they're very unlike me. See, I don't like violence. Always avoid it if I can. But a ninja? A ninja _loves _violence. A bit too much, really. Stab you in the back soon as look at you. And you've got two of them on the loose, working together. If you start killing us, what do you suppose is going to happen to you and your men? Because they won't stop. You know that. Not until all of you are dead. Particularly if you hurt _her._" He nodded towards Scarlett. "Because I think that would make the one very, _very _angry. So you're going to let us go now, and we'll help you ferret out your spy and find out why he's trying to destroy the planet, and then we'll stop him, and _then_ we'll go back and stop the men you sent to kill these people as children. I'm growing rather fond of them, rather not have them drop dead."

"You sound very sure of yourself." Destro raised an eyebrow under his mask.

"James McCullen. Destro." The Doctor stared the other man dead in the eyes. "As brilliant as you are, and that is very, know this; _I am cleverer._ I will find ways to stop you, if you try to stop me, and it will be in ways that you could never have seen."

"I could kill you right here and now."

"You could." The Doctor nodded. "But then we'd be back to the 'angry ninja' thing, and you're not going to kill me anyway."

"And how do you know that?"

"Because I'm what you've always wanted." The Doctor smiled again. "Someone who appreciates, really appreciates, just how clever you are. On this whole planet, James McCullen, I'm the only one. And if you hurt them, you lose the chance to ever talk to me again."

There was a good thirty seconds of silence. The Joes, slightly shellshocked, were staring, openmouthed.

"Did he just smooth talk our way out of a firefight, probable death, and horrible little dank cells?" Covergirl finally muttered.

"I think so." Flint murmured back.

"Ah'll give him credit for balls." Beach scowled. "Still gonna kill him."

The Doctor just smiled.


	11. Chapter 11

"The point is, you _can't _go mucking about with time and killing people you don't like as children." The Doctor, wedged under the new time machine next to Destro, pointed. "See? Right there between the power input cables." He aimed the Sonic Screwdriver at the spot and buzzed for a second. "There. I've deactivated the automatic detonation. It should be safe to remove now."

"Why not? You just admitted that I was correct, and time is in flux." Destro unscrewed one of the power couplings and squinted. "That thing? It's barely the size of a grain of rice." He carefully pried the little oval off of the temporal stabilizer with a pair of tweezers.

"Yeah, well, that tiny little thing can take the free electrons from the plasma field generated by the gravity drive, shatter the particle matrix binding the electrons into the form of matter, and unfreeze them into pure energy. Releases the power equivalent of a several kiloton nuclear bomb in about a tenth of a second. Detonates the temporal stabilizer, the rest of your time machine and probably a good chunk of the neighborhood with it, the vortex collapses, the energy all slams together, and _bam. _Singularity. Not a big one; it'd evaporate in a few hours, but not before it ate most of the planet. And you can't because then you screw up how the future turns out, and I have to fix everything _again." _A long-suffering sigh. "Honestly, I've never met a race so prone to trouble as humans. I'm _never _going to get done saving you."

"Interesting." Destro eyed the little charge. The Doctor aimed the Sonic Screwdriver at it. There was a buzz, a crackle, a fizzing pop, several sparks, and a puff of acrid smoke.

"Of course, _now _the insides are melted into a fused mass of slag." The Doctor grinned happily. "Making it quite impossible for even you to reverse engineer anything useful from it. By the way, this bit here? Where you cobbled together a primitive helmic regulator out of a cesium clock, a hard drive, and a radon laser? That's _brilliant._ What did you use for a coordinate baseline? Because you lot have _no _concept of universal space-time fourth-dimensional coordinates yet."

Destro glared, but wasn't quite able to work up a proper death glare; it was hard to really wish bodily harm on the man who was telling you for the twentieth time how much of a genius you were. "Star positions. I doubt the machine would work on other planets, but it proves effective here on Earth."

The Doctor crowed in delight. "Oh, that's _wonderful! _Genius! _Genius!_ A bit crude, perhaps, but _brilliant. _This thing navigates time and space the same way the ancient Earth sailors did; by the _stars. _That's _poetry, _right there. _Oh, _but you've got a beautiful mind. Cracked, but it's remarkable how often genius and madness coincide._" _A pause. "Wait, that was _Pirates of the Caribbean, _wasn't it?Oh, well. The point stands. Incidentally, _do _go see that when it comes out. Johnny Depp is brilliant." He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I gave him the hat."

"Yes, well. I did rather think it was clever." Destro chose to ignore the last part of that segue; it was easier than trying to make sense of it. "You said that you would stop me from changing the future." He screwed the power coupling back into place. "And why are you not destroying my machines, then?"

"Well, you're _supposed _to be the one who invents time travel on this planet. But that doesn't give you the right to go about killing people you don't like as children."

"And who are you, exactly, to say what can and cannot happen with time travel?"

"I'm the Lord of Time." The Doctor's voice was flat. "It's in my bones. It's simple biology. I'm a Time Lord. The last of them, in fact, which makes problems with the timelines my responsibility. I'm not human, James, even if I look it. A rather spectacular case of convergent evolution, though I'm set up rather different on the inside than you lot. My home planet was located two hundred and fifty million light years from this system."

"Time Lord?"

"Time Lord." The Doctor slid out from under the machine. "The oldest civilization in the universe. Hundreds of millions of years of civilization and space travel. Entire civilizations rose because we smiled on them or fell because we did not. There are entire systems where the terms "Time Lord" and "God" were interchangeable." His voice went brooding for a moment. "That was part of the problem, really." He brightened again. "Anyway, Gallifrey was exposed to vortex radiation from the untempered schism; my people developed our Time-sense as a result. We did great things. Such great things. The shining pinnacle of civilization in the universe for tens of millions of years."

Destro extracted himself from under the machine and stared. "You're an alien."

"Yup." The Doctor grinned and waved. "Hello."

"From a world more advanced than our own."

"_Way. _Not even a fair comparison, really. You're a clever lot, and you'll do great things, but right now that's like comparing a band of _homo habilis _banging rocks together to a team of rocket scientists."

"And you know my name." Destro stared at the other man. "In the future, on other planets, _they know my name."_

"Well, like I said. You're a genius. One of _the _geniuses, actually. Einstein, Curie, Newton, Galileo, McCullen." The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets and grinned. "They'll remember you, James McCullen, until the heat-death of the universe."

Destro took a deep breath. "My family name will live forever, then. _My _name will live forever."

"Three thousand years from now, I'll blow up a weapons facility on Villengard." The Doctor scratched a sideburn. "Well. Three thousand years from _now, _but I already did it. Blimey, that was almost two hundred years back...I'm getting _old. _That was two bodies ago. Anyway! The weapons manufacturing facilities of Villengard will be owned by McCullen Enterprises, before I blow them up. They'll plant a banana grove there, after I blow it up. Bananas are good. Excellent source of potassium, you know."

A pause. "I'm only willing to give you a break on the weapons manufacturing thing because McCullen Enterprises will hit on gold dust weaponry during the Cyberman Wars, and help save the universe because of it. Otherwise, I'd shut you down now, but for the greater good, you know. Besides, I rather think that that little group of Americans is quite good at keeping you in check."

Under his mask, and despite himself, Destro felt himself smiling. "Thank you, Doctor…" What the alien had just said sank in. "…_two hundred years ago?"_

"Okay, two hundred and ten, if I'm being honest." The Doctor eyed Destro. "Oh, right, this again…older than I look, me. _Much _older. Time Lords. We hang around a bit longer than you lot. My first body lasted me four hundred and fifty years. The ones since haven't lasted me quite so long, but you know how it is. Dangerous life, bound to get killed now and again. I'm a bit older than nine hundred."

"…_First _body?" Destro's prodigious brain was beginning to hurt.

"Time Lord. We can regenerate our bodies when we're dying. Little way of cheating the Grim Reaper. Comes in handy." The Doctor grimaced. "Mind you, doesn't make dying any less painful, but there you have it."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Destro folded his arms. "Couldn't this damage future events?"

"Nah." The Doctor shrugged. "Not like I'm giving you the equations behind faster than light travel. Felt I should do _something _to make up for the fact that I'm going to stop you fiddling about with time in any way that could muck things up."

"The thing I don't understand; you claim that you are going to stop the men I already sent back. But you've no weapons, and have actively been avoiding hostilities. The men I sent back are _soldiers. _They have _guns._ And yet, I know that six teams failed in their missionsfdls'a. _How?"_

The Doctor smiled. "Well, I don't know yet, do I? Haven't done it yet. But I bet it'll be something _brilliant. _It usually is, when I'm involved. Not to brag, but I'm kind of amazing on occasion."

"You're a very confusing man, Doctor."

The Doctor beamed happily.

* * *

The Doctor was extremely skilled in getting his own way. He'd once accused Rose Tyler of being 'jeopardly friendly,' but honestly he was just as bad. He could insinuate himself almost anywhere with an effortless combination of charm, not taking no for an answer, disarming grins, and last but not least simply walking about as if he owned the place. Within two minutes of meeting Destro he'd been chatting the man up as if they'd known each other for years, and somehow the threat of imminent death by shooting had been forgotten.

The Joe team, on the other hand, was not quite so gregarious, except for Chuckles, and a lesser extent Jaye. Either one could lay on the charm in almost lethal quantities, but even the two best undercover agents on the Joe team paled in comparison to the Doctor.

It boiled down to human psychology again, and the fact that the Doctor had had several centuries to perfect it. A man who acted like he was in charge of the situation, nine times out of ten, became by default in charge of the situation. And faced with the unstoppable force that was the Doctor, even the most immovable and stubborn of people found it difficult to hold out for long.

The Doctor seemed to have brokered a truce of sorts, but while he was tinkering with time machines and happily discussing the finer points of time travel with Destro, the Joe team and the vipers were regarding each other with deep suspicion. Neither group was entirely sure what had just happened, and neither was taking the 'firefight' option off the table just yet.

The whole thing had been made even more awkward when the Doctor, somehow, had badgered and shamed the vipers into offering their 'guests' tea. No one, least of all the vipers, was quite sure how this had happened, but Psyche-Out, had he been present to watch, would have been impressed. He also would probably have taken notes for future reference.

This led to the current situation; eyeing each other warily in the hallway outside Research One, while the Time Lord and Destro tinkered.

The door to the lab hissed open. The Doctor was already apparently in the middle of some sort of lecture; this surprised no one who'd been around him for more than thirty seconds.

"…builds up a static charge in the ionosphere. Every time you send a pulse out to modify the weather patterns. Now, if you just use it once it's not a big deal. Planets use them all the time to relieve droughts or break up hurricanes before they can do any damage. Charge dissipates over time in a series of microflashes, aren't even visible to the naked eye. But if you _keep _using one, over and over again, that charge builds and builds and builds until it reaches critical."

"And then what?" Destro sounded curious.

"Ever see a lightning storm on Jupiter?" The Doctor cocked an eyebrow.

"…I see."

"Yeah. Can't be controlled, fry every life form on the planet like chips."

"…I _see."_

"Which is why I fused the settings on that machine you were building." The Doctor grinned happily. "Can only influence minor phenomena within five miles of the machine once per week. Because, no offense, but you're not exactly the sort I want running about with the ability to torch the planet."

"You _what?"_

"I've locked your time machines to only go a year forward or back, too. You can still make all the contributions to science that you're supposed to, and can't meddle too much where you're not supposed to." The Doctor shook Destro's hand. "Anyway! Lovely meeting you, thanks for signing my book, you're a genius and all, you should see a good psychiatrist, and we'll just be off now."

Destro smiled, a slow, mocking smile that the Joe team knew only too well. "Take them to detention block seven. Don't harm them, and be very careful with the Doctor. I want him kept alive. Any progress on capturing the ninja?"

"…_What?" _The Doctor blinked.

"Knew it." Beach rumbled, sounding downright relieved. "_Knew _it. Destro ain't gone all huggy feely, however much techno-babble you throw at him."

"_What? _Hey! _Oi!" _The Doctor struggled as two vipers, also looking rather relieved, grabbed him by the arms. "_What?"_

"You, Doctor, are possibly the greatest weapon I could ever have hoped to find." Destro folded his arms. "Such knowledge, and such great engineering prowess! What blueprints for marvelous machines must be inside your head! I am a fortunate man, this day."

Vipers grabbed for the Joe team. There were a few moments of sudden, explosive violence. The first unfortunate man to make a move for Scarlett ended up screaming in pain with a broken arm; the first viper to make a grab for Beach ended up getting used as a human missile. Flint punched a man across the jaw, and got a boot in his gut.

"Stop it! STOP IT!" The Doctor was shouting. "You're going to get yourselves _killed!"_

A viper hit the wall with a sickening crack. Rifles were raised.

"_STOP IT RIGHT NOW!" _

Everyone, despite themselves, froze. A roar that loud and that absolutely authoritative should not be able to come from a man that thin and, well, _geeky _looking. Everyone looked over at the Doctor, shocked.

All trace of the genial, affable, enthusiastic man that they'd begun to become accustomed to was gone. His face was set, and his eyes…his eyes had gone dark, and burningly cold. He was glaring, even restrained, and that huge dark dangerous _something _was right there. He managed to give the impression of looming, even though two men had him by the arms.

"That will be _quite _enough of that. James, you are making a _very _big mistake. You do not want me for an enemy, and if you continue down this path _you will make one of me. _I will _never _give you the information you want, and I _will _make you regret this."

"Doctor, I am not going to torture you." Destro smiled under his mask. "I am certain that you would hold out against such crude measures. We have far more elegant ways to extract information from you. I will put in a call to Doctor Mindbender. He has a portable version of the Brainwave Scanner that he has been working on. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to test it on you."

"Brainwave scanner? What?"

"Take them away. I am going to return to my dinner." Destro turned away.

"Don't fight!" The Doctor glared at the men holding his arms as they began dragging him away. "We'll get out of this, don't worry, but we can't do that if we all get shot."

Breaker sighed as the Joes, reluctantly, complied. "Oh, goody. Cells. I _hate _getting captured."

"Tell me about it." The Doctor sighed. "I guess this means we're on plan 'B'."

"And what's that? _Ow!" _Jaye kneed her captor in the gut. "If you keep wrenching my elbow like that, I'm going to kill you whether or not we get shot."

"Not sure yet." The Doctor shrugged.

"…._are you making this up as you go?"_ Courtney snarled.

"Maybe. Sort of. Yes. But I do it _so _well."

"Ah'm gonna punch him. Ah'm _gonna punch him._"


	12. Chapter 12

It's referenced in several books that the Ninth Doctor had a particular fondness for video games, and was exceptionally skilled at them. I have a ridiculous mental image of him ripping through Myst games in about a day and a half. Including all the alternate endings.

"Well, _obviously _this safe combination is going to be 724, because that was the date Aaron's son was born on, and Aaron programmed this bit. Shut up, of course I knew one of the programmers. And then…oh, a match, I bet if I light this furnace…bingo! Then I just turn this wheel…hmm…clockwise. Oh, it's making a sound! Fantastic. Let's turn it the other way. Ha! Oh! I bet if I run back outside…yep! Passageway through the tree! I thought you said these puzzles were hard. Hey! Ow! Stop that!"

Yeah.

The Drake's Fortune games are ridiculously awesome. Play them.

* * *

"I mean, _really! _This is _completely _unnecessary!"

"Shut up."

"Oi! _Hey! _Don't take the Sonic! I _need _that!"

"Shut _up."_

"I mean, if you take our equipment, we'll be _helpless."_

One of the vipers shot a sidelong look at Beachhead. "Riiight."

"And if you take the Sonic Screwdriver, how am I supposed to make a brilliant escape and thwart all of your plans?"

"Well, that's why we're _taking _it."

"…Okay, that does make logical sense, I suppose. I don't suppose you could leave everything sitting conveniently near the cells so that once we break out its all right there?"

"How about no?" The viper located the bag of jelly babies and popped one in his mouth. "Hey…these _are _good."

"Well, I _did _tell you. Y'know, I've been captured on _so _many planets. I should really start travelling with a locksmith. Or a thief. Someone good with locks, you know?"

"Shut. Up."

"I mean, for when they take the Sonic Screwdriver. I'm okay with a bent pin, don't get me wrong, but for higher quality padlocks a professional would really be nice to have around." A pause. "A thief would be really good. Because then they could steal back our gear _and _break us out."

"Mike, get the gag."

"Not like Nathan Drake in Drake's Fortune, though. Blimey, those were good games. Beat them all, last body, in one day. I highly recommend them. Almost jumped out of my own skin when the Nazi zombies showed up. Anyway! Not so much like Drake. Less killing everyone and alerting the guards and more sneaking and stealing and breaking me out. That's what I should look for in a companion, really…mmmmph! Mmmphnhhh mmpmmpmph mmmmphhhh!"

"_Fuck." _The viper apparently named Mike none-too-gently slapped a strip of duct tape over the Time Lord's mouth. "Does he _ever _stop talking?"

"Not really." Jaye shook her head. "You just kind of try to get in a few words edgewise when he pauses for breath."

_"Mmmmmmpphhhhh!"_

* * *

The cells weren't _nearly _as nice as those in the Pit. Concrete, dank, with solid iron bars, little more than large steel and cement cages. They were shoved unceremoniously into two of the cells, the doors were slammed shut and locked, and the vipers trooped away. The Doctor peeled the tape off of his face with a sour expression.

As soon as the vipers were gone, Beachhead calmly turned, wound up, and landed a picture-perfect right cross squarely across the Doctor's jaw. The Time Lord went down like a sack of potatoes; Beachhead massaged his knuckles and nodded to himself. "Ah feel better now."

A pained groan sounded from the vicinity of the floor. Beachhead smiled. "Ah _really _feel better now."

The Doctor, rubbing his jaw, sat up. "_Ow! _What was _that _for?!"

"Principle." Beach folded his arms.

"_Mean _right cross you've got there. I really should have ducked. That _hurt."_

"Good. It was supposed to."

Scarlett, in the other cell, raised her eyebrows. "I'm surprised that didn't break his jaw. Beach, you're slipping."

"Time Lord. Bit more durable than a human." The Doctor, wincing, got back to his feet. "Still, _owwwwww._ That _hurt._ Also, _owwww._"

"So." Flint leaned against the bars of the cell. "Now we're unarmed, in a cell, awaiting interrogation. Ideas?"

Scarlett smiled and extracted a bobby pin from her hair. "Ten minutes and I can have both these cells open."

Covergirl raised her eyebrows. "They forgot to take all of those off of you _again?"_

"They're really not all that bright." Scarlett shrugged. "We'll need to find our equipment once we get out of here."

"Really no need." The Doctor winced again. "Already taken care of. I give it five minutes and we'll be out of here."

Everyone turned to stare. "How?" Flint's voice was flat.

The Doctor grinned. "Psychology. And a bit of cleverness on my part. And can you _really _pick an eighteen-pin security deadlock with a _bent hairpin?_ I mean, I'm good with a bent pin, but a high-security padlock?"

Scarlett smiled. "I escaped Destro's castle with a bent hairpin and eighteen inches of chain. Snake Eyes picked me up, but I'd already disabled most of the guards, concussed Storm Shadow, and locked him in my cell."

"Blimey."

There was the brief sound of a scuffle outside of the detention area. The Time Lord brightened. "Ah! Our rescue!"

The door slid open. Snake Eyes padded through, dragging a very unconscious viper by the scruff of the neck. Storm Shadow followed him a moment later, holding a sizeable sack under one arm.

The Doctor grinned. "See? Told you."

"That wasn't psychology." Storm Shadow said flatly. Snake Eyes dumped the viper in an empty cell, produced a keyring, and proceeded to unlock the other cells. "That was giving us instructions while we were following you."

"_Without _the vipers realizing that I was giving you instructions, and _without _anyone else knowing that you were following us." The Doctor grinned. "Psychology." He snatched the bag from Storm Shadow and extracted his Sonic Screwdriver. "Right! I don't suppose either of you managed to locate Research Two?"

*Top floor.* Snake Eyes signed. *We're on the bottom. The ventilation ducts are electrified right now, so we can't sneak up that way.*

The Doctor eyed Storm Shadow. "How far away can you hear someone coming?"

The ninja smiled, just a tiny bit. "I can hear people talking in the mess hall a floor above us right now." He closed his eyes for a moment. "One just ordered the potatoes au gratin...which, if I remember the food they used to serve in the mess halls accurately, was a mistake. Two others are arguing about whether From Russia with Love or Goldfinger was the better James Bond movie." He opened his eyes. "The answer, of course, is Thunderball."

Snake Eyes snorted. *Dr. No.*

The Doctor _grinned. _"Right! So we use Ears here to help us sneak up to the lab, break in, get back into the TARDIS, and we'll be off."

"Give it a minute." Storm Shadow's voice had dropped in volume, and his head was cocked slightly to one side. "There's someone coming down the hallway."

* * *

Chhll'kti hurried down the hallway, the soft human skin of his hand sweating against the grip of his primitive projectile firearm.

_Kill the Travelling Man. _

The Travelling Man was the name given him by the Thillani, but he had many other names, and all were legend. The Travelling man was known across the universe. The most famous of his names, of course, was the one he gave himself; The Doctor. Merely saying the words could bring armies to a halt and cause brave men to look nervously over their shoulders.

The stories of his exploits spanned galaxies. One man, who had stood before the mightiest warriors the universe could produce and one by one torn them down. The Cybermen. The Krillitanes. The Sontarans. The Carrionites. The Carions. The Slitheen. As much as Chhll'kti hated to admit it, the Thillani. The most feared warriors of them all, the Daleks. Even the Time Lords themselves. All had challenged the Travelling man, and each had fallen in turn. And, for reasons unknown to anyone but the Doctor himself, he'd adopted this one tiny, damp, primitive, insignificant little world as his second home after the fall of Gallifrey. For some reason, he appeared to _like _humans, the weak little soft apes who would spread out so far and who could turn so remarkably stubborn and prickly when threatened. There were entire spacefaring civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy that had branded the Sol system as a no-fly zone, simply because it was known that the Doctor had declared the Earth to be under his protection.

And now this man, the man who'd defeated warlords and armies, was locked in a cell, at Chhll'kti's mercy.

Chhll'kti checked the magazine in his gun. The Doctor was a Time Lord; one bullet wouldn't kill him. Killing the current body would simply cause the Doctor to regenerate. Chhll'kti wasn't honestly certain how many bullets it would take to kill the man; he'd never killed a Time Lord before.

If he ran out of bullets, he supposed he could always revert to his true shape and simply tear the man to bits. That was usually an effective strategy for killing any being, whatever the species.

He took a deep breath, keyed in the code for the detention block, and stepped through as soon as it slid open, gun ready.

The cells were empty. Chhll'kti had a brief moment to panic…_the Travelling Man is scheming, the Travelling Man is loose and scheming, this is bad, this is very bad, this could ruin it all…_

Then something smashed into the back of his head very hard, and everything went black.

* * *

"You didn't have to hit him!"

Snake Eyes, not looking sorry in the least, examined the gun the viper had been holding, flipped the safety on, and tucked it into the back of his belt.

The Doctor shook his head, disgruntled. "Now I'll have to get him to come around before I can talk to him. At least we found our alien."

Everyone looked down at the unconscious man. "He doesn't look like an alien." Jaye pointed out.

"Well, neither do I, but I am. But this chap's wearing a shimmer. And that tells me that this isn't what he really looks like." The Doctor pulled out the Sonic Screwdriver and aimed it down at the unconscious man. There was a brief buzzing, and everyone except the Doctor recoiled as the man suddenly bulged and shifted into something that looked like nothing so much as a very large centipede with six legs and several oddly jointed, insectile, handlike appendeges.

"Ahhh. Thillani." The Doctor tucked the Sonic Screwdriver back into his jacket pocket. "Wonder what they're doing here? They live on the other side of the galaxy. In a thousand years or so they'll start carving out a sizeable empire, but right now they've just got their own home system plus a few nearby uninhabited systems they colonized and terraformed." He crouched down and clicked his fingers next to a pair of dips in the chitinous shell that must have been ears. "Hello! Come on then, I know you aren't concussed." He glanced up at the Joe team. "Two brains. Keep one up top and one down between their lungs. Makes it impossible to knock one out for long; the secondary brain will take over operations. So he should be waking up right about…now."

The centipede-thing lunged upright and immediately went for the Doctor; two swords crossed in front of what must have been a neck, because it was below the head. The alien recoiled, and its head swiveled side to side, taking in the two ninja. The hairs on its back rippled restlessly.

"Easy now." The Doctor raised a placating hand. "I just want to talk."

"The _Travelling Man_." The giant space centipede was staring at the Doctor. "You're the _Travelling Man."_

"It's speaking English." Breaker blinked. "Why is the giant space centipede speaking English?"

"It's not. The TARDIS is translating for you." The Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets. "You're a long way from home. Here's a question for you; why are the Thillani trying to destroy this planet? It's no threat to you. Why are you even _here? _You've only got three colony systems right now."

"…wait, for _us?_ So, you, you can _speak _space centipede?"

"Thillani. And yes. I speak everything. I mean, _seriously_. This planet is still using _chemical rockets, _for god's sake. What possible reason would you have for trying to destroy it?"

The centipede thing…Thillani…clicked its mandibles. "I know about you, Travelling Man. Do not pretend to be stupid. It is known that you are clever."

"Well. Not to brag, but I _do _tend to be a bit brilliant on occasion." The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "But I honestly have no idea what you're on about."

The mandible clicking increased in volume. "You are the Travelling Man! You destroyed the Thillani timeships! You broke the Thillani fleet! You and the Man who Would Not Die and The Travelling Man's Woman! Do not pretend you do not know!"

"I've got a woman? And I'm travelling with Jack again? News to me." The Doctor stared the alien down. "Whatever I've done to you lot, it hasn't happened yet for me. I destroy your timeships? Since when do the Thillani have timeships?"

"In the three thousandth year of the Second Great Thillani Expansion, the timeships were built." If a centipede could glare balefully, this one was. "On their first voyage, they were destroyed by the Travelling Man."

"Ah." The Doctor nodded as if this made sense. "That'll be, oh, four thousand years in the future from right now. That'd explain the vortex energy on you, then. Why do I destroy your timeships and battle fleet?"

"We sought revenge." The Thillani's voice was sullen.

"On who?"

"The humans. They defeated us; the dishonor was intolerable."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "So you figured you'd just nip back in time and murder them in the cradle, so to speak? Seems to be a popular tactic lately. But I got in the way, didn't I? Except I haven't, yet, so it should be I _will _get in the way. And so what's this? A second shot at revenge?" His voice went hard. "You'd destroy an entire planet just because one of the species that live on it destroyed a few of your ships?"

"They defeated us in battle! It was…"

"Yes, yes, I know, dishonorable. Did you _ever _consider _not _attacking them and, I don't know, maybe talking to them now and then? They're really quite nice people._"_

"We would never sully ourselves! The…"

"Let me guess; dishonor." The Doctor sighed. "God, you lot were always a bit thick. Anyway, this all stops _now. _I've already found the electron charge and disabled it. And _this," _He held up a small silver oval, "will let me trace your subspace communications back to your command ship. So we'll all pop back to the TARDIS, we'll take you back to your ship, I'll have a few stern words with your commander, and if he's reasonable about the whole thing you can just go home."

The Thillani felt frantically at his belt. "How did you get my communicator?"

The Doctor grinned. "I nicked it. Clever, me, remember? Harry Houdini taught me to pick pockets, actually. Nicked a vortex manipulator right out of my jacket pocket. Had to chase him all the way to back to Egypt to get it back. Found him in Cleopatra's bedchamber, the naughty boy." He grinned happily. "_Blimey, _there was a woman! My _god, _could she play chess! And _parties! _You haven't partied until you've been to one of Cleo's bashes! She had a wine _fountain!_ And these little cakes with different flavors of jam in them! Marc Antony passed out in the fountain at two in the morning. Leonardo painted some very impolite things on his forehead." He scratched his chin. "I think I technically invented piñatas that night. Cleo picked right up on Old Martian, too, but then she was always rather good at languages."

"What?" The alien seemed taken aback for a moment, which was a rather interesting expression to see on a centipede. The Joes rather sympathized; it was hard _not _to feel that way around the Doctor sometimes. The Thillani made a move to grab for the communicator, but stopped when the sharp steel of the crossed swords started biting into the chitin plates on its throat. "_Give it back!" _

The Doctor tucked the communicator into one of his coat pockets. "No."

The Thillani gave him another hate-filled look. "When I die, there will be others. We _will _have revenge! If I fail, my commanders will burn this planet to slag!"

"You know, if you're trying to convince me to _not _interfere with your plans, you're doing a _really _poor job of it. So! You've got commanders, then. And if I know anything about Thillani technology, you need more than one ship if you're going to be burning an entire planet." A raised eyebrow. "It would take at the _very _least...oh…six. So you've got a fleet, hidden nearby, because this is a subspace communicator. And once we get back to the TARDIS, it'll be a snap to trace the signal back to your fleet. And then I _will _stop them. But if you are willing to help me, maybe we can do it without anyone getting hurt. You don't _have _to have revenge. Humans are really quite nice. You could probably benefit from trade agreements with them; you're still using solar mirror networks for power, aren't you? You'd be interested in their antimatter annihilation plants."

The Thillani jerked, a motion rather reminiscent of a cat trying to hack up a hairball. He started convulsing and then fell to the floor. The convulsions quickly slowed to twitching, and then the utter, unnatural stillness of death.

"NO! No no no no no!" The Doctor went to his knees, scanning the creature with the Sonic Screwdriver. "Why'd you do that?! Why'd you have to do that?!_" _Frustrated, he sat back on his heels and ran a hand through his hair. "He took a suicide pill. Standard issue to Thillani undercover operatives; they store it in their secondary gizzard until they need it, and then belch it up and swallow it properly."

He stood, heaving a sigh. "Right. So, now we go find the we track down this one's fleet. Then we stop it. Then we go back and see about saving you lot as children. _Then _I take you home. And _then _I'm going to go to Fafnir Two and lie on a beach and drink banana daiquiris out of coconut shells for a week or two, because I've been saving you lot nonstop for a month now. You! Ears! Is anyone else coming?"

Storm Shadow favored the Doctor with a long, level, chilly stare. "Stop calling me 'Ears.'"

Beachhead grinned, a long, slow, evil grin.

"Oh, fine. Ninja. So _prickly. _Is anyone coming or not?"

"No."

"Well then!" The Doctor bounded out the door. "Allons-y!"

"This man is going to get us killed." Storm Shadow pointed this out remarkably calmly as they scrambled to catch up. "Dead."

"I knew this was a mistake." Beachhead grumbled.


	13. Chapter 13

As tall and skinny as he was, the Doctor was an accomplished runner. It took the Joes several seconds to catch up with him.

They rounded a corner, and skidded to a halt in front of an elevator. Moments later, Scarlett was reflecting that, really, no Beatles song should ever be remastered as elevator music. She also wondered why Destro would bother with elevator music at all, particularly a bad rendition of 'Yellow Submarine'.

There was a small camera in the corner of the elevator; the Doctor reached for his Sonic Screwdriver, but Breaker got to it first and calmly ripped a cable loose. There was a popping noise; the Doctor blinked, then shrugged and tucked the Sonic Screwdriver away.

As the elevator slowed, Storm Shadow suddenly looked up. "There's someone waiting for it!"

Beachhead happened to be standing under the maintenance hatch on the elevator roof. He shoved it up and to the side, grabbed the edge, and hauled himself up and onto the roof of the elevator with a truly impressive display of upper-body strength. Within seconds, the Joes and the Doctor had followed. By the time the elevator door hissed open, there was no trace of the Joes or the Time Lord, and four vipers getting off shift ambled into the lift to return to the lower levels and their bunkrooms.

Moments later, the elevator descended, leaving seven people clinging haphazardly to the side of the elevator shaft, just above the door.

"Okay then." The Doctor still sounded cheerful, as if dangling from an elevator cable forty feet in the air was an everyday occurrence. "Anyone else coming?"

Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes were the only two who were more or less at ease. Tommy had one hand on a sturdy electrical cable and a toehold on the ledge formed by the top of the elevator doors, and wasn't visibly perturbed by the three-story vertical drop below him. Even Scarlett was holding on to her bit of protruding rebar with everything she had. "No. All clear."

"Lovely." The Doctor aimed the Sonic Screwdriver at the elevator doors; they slid open. The two ninja dropped down and were through the door and on solid floor in the blink of an eye, and then helped the others through.

*This way. Just around the corner.* Snake Eyes took off at a lope.

The door to Research Two was almost identical to that of Research One. However, this time when the Doctor aimed the Sonic Screwdriver at the code panel, nothing happened.

"_What!" _The Doctor glared at his Sonic Screwdriver as if it had personally betrayed him. "He's deadlocked it! Is there another way in?" He glanced over at Snake Eyes.

Snake Eyes shook his head and pointed to a heating duct on the wall above them. *Through that. But the ducts are electrified right now. Can't get through.*

The Doctor shot the grating a calculating sort of look. "_You _can't."

Covergirl raised her eyebrows. "Don't tell me you're immune to electricity."

"Not immune. But I can handle a far larger dose than any of you." The Doctor aimed the Sonic Screwdriver at the grating; the screws unscrewed and dropped to the ground with little _plinking_ noises. The grating followed with a _clank _a moment later. "Oh, this is going to _hurt._" He rubbed his hands together, took a running start, jumped, caught the edge of the duct, and immediately flinched. _"YEEEOW! _Oh, _nothing _like three thousand volts to wake a man up. Yep, that hurts. _Wooo! _Oh, _that'll _get the hearts pounding!" He pulled himself up and shimmied into the duct, out of sight.

Five minutes later the lab door hissed open. The Doctor, still brushing cobwebs off of his coat, was standing on the other side, his hair even wilder than normal. "Right. Remind me not to do that again for a bit. _Tingly."_

"You're mad." Storm Shadow looked impressed. "Totally mad."

"Absolutely." The Doctor nodded. "Shall we be off?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the TARDIS, sitting in the middle of the lab with the door open. "I've already got her warmed up."

It was at just about that point that an alarm started shrieking. Everyone piled into the TARDIS; the Doctor, bringing up the rear, shut the door and locked it, grinning happily.

Outside the TARDIS, the lab doors hissed open and a squad of vipers boiled through. Several bullets _pinged _off the TARDIS as the grinding _vvvvrrWRRRRrrrr, vvvvrrWWRRRRrrrr _of dematerialization started to sound, and then there was just an empty space where a blue police box had stood, and a squad of extremely confused vipers staring at it.

After several seconds of contemplating the empty space that should contain a police box timeship, one of the vipers leaned over and murmured to one of his squadmates. "When my contract is up, I'm quitting."

The other viper, eyes wide, just nodded.

* * *

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor was fiddling with controls. "Right then. It'll take me a few hours to trace this back and get a lock on the Thillani ships. You lot, go on. Get something to eat. Take a nap. Clean your guns. Whatever soldiers do to relax." He pulled the communicator out of his coat pocket and locked in place on the console; four little metal fingers extended to grip it and hold it in place. He pulled the veiwscreen over and eyed it, and then started flipping switches. He muttered something under his breath, bent over, and started fiddling with something under the console. He straightened, pulled his glasses out, and slid them on before aiming the Sonic Screwdriver at the communicator and buzzing away.

He glanced up. "Go on. Shoo. You're distracting. I don't like being distracted."

Everyone but Storm Shadow eventually ambled out of the console room. Tommy leaned against one of the coral supports and waited.

As soon as the others were gone, the Doctor straightened. "Right. I wanted a word alone."

"I figured as much, when you told me to stay behind as you were pretending to mumble to yourself." Tommy raised his eyebrows. "Don't you need to run a trace on that thing?"

"Already done. They're hiding out on the far side of Mercury. I just wanted to have a word with you." The Doctor examined the ninja over the tops of his glasses. "What happened to you?"

Storm Shadow blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Something happened to you. Something painful. Something that's still bothering you. I can see it, in your eyes. Something so bad that you can't talk about it, because even talking about it brings it all back, and you don't want that."

Storm Shadow said nothing, but his stance went rigid and his knuckles whitened.

"And then, they mentioned some sort of device called a 'brainwave scanner.'" The Doctor eyed the ninja keenly, and didn't miss the involuntary flaring of the nostrils and deep, angry breath. "Wanted to put me in it to look inside my head. And you know the thing, don't you?" He shoved his hands into his pockets. "It does more than just scan your brain, doesn't it? Whatever happened to you, I can help. I'm fairly sure your father would actually come back from the dead and kill me if I didn't try to help you."

There was a long, long moment of absolute silence. The Doctor waited patiently.

"It's…a machine. Does things to your brain. He put me in it." Storm Shadow's voice was scarcely above a whisper when he finally spoke. "Doctor Mindbender. They…brainwashed me. Made me their slave, for years. Took all my real memories away and put false ones in. Made me forget my family. Made me forget my friends. Made me try to _kill _them."

The Doctor gave him a look of infinite sorrow and pity. "But you broke through the conditioning."

"Yes." The ninja's voice was clipped.

"But it still hurts."

"Yes."

"I can help." The Doctor moved closer. "If you'll let me. I'm a telepath, remember?"

The ninja stared at him. "I really don't like people who want to poke around in my head."

"Understandably so. But I _can _help, if you'll trust me."

Tommy eyed him warily. "Telepath. So you could just look through my head whenever you felt like it?"

"No. Time Lords aren't strong telepaths. We need physical contact. And even if I could, I never would without permission."

Another long moment of silence. At last, the ninja nodded, just one short, sharp jerk of his head. "If you can really help."

"I can." The Doctor gently pressed his fingers against Storm Shadow's temples and closed his eyes. "Just relax."

The first reaction he felt was panic, wild and hot, walls slamming up around the ninja's mind in an instinctive defensive reaction. _He _has_ had people play with his mind before, then. _"Shhhh. Shh shhh shh." He murmured. "It's okay. I'm trying to help….That's it…let me in…if there's anything you don't want me to see, imagine it behind a door and shut it. I won't look."

Slowly, the panic subsided, through a palpable effort on the ninja's part. He could actually _hear _the change in heartbeat as the ninja forced himself to use a calming breathing exercise. The Doctor slid into the ninja's mind…

"Oh, Tomisaburo…" He breathed the words. "Oh, what have they done to you?"

Fear, anger, tatters and wisps of battered, bruised memories, the gossamer threads of false memories, pain, screaming, fear, _killmekillmekillme…painfearnononotagain,notagain,ratherdie, don'ttakeitallagain…_hate, so strong that he could taste it, hot and coppery. _Mindbender. Kill him. He did this to me. He took it all. Took everything. Made me a slave. Made me hurt my family. Hurt my friends. Kill Zartan! Got to kill Zartan! Ruined my life. Killed my uncle. My fault, should have stopped him. He framed me. Running, so much running…Mindbender! Hatehatehatehate ...killhimkillhim…_

Flashes of a machine, tinged red by fear and hate and _pain. _Electrodes on his head. Strapped down, couldn't move, _painpainpain,searingburninghurtshurtshurt s…nono, don't make me forget…killmekillmekillmeaplease…._

Again and again and again. So many times. They'd broken him, again and again, stripping everything away, lies planted in place of real memories. They'd taken everything that was _him. _The mad scientist named Mindbender had torn it all away and implanted complicated lies in place of the life he'd erased. Lies to make him a slave, lies to make him into a weapon. So much pain, so much fear, so much guilt and anger and hate.

He felt his hearts breaking for the man; even a Time Lord would have been hard pressed to cling to sanity in the face of what this man had endured. "I am so sorry." He whispered. "I am so, so sorry. I promise you, I will stop him from doing this again, to _anyone._"

The ninja must have been enduring hallucinations; the ghosts of false memories were still wound into his mind. He'd buried them under the real ones, pushed them back and away, but…and yes, he could see there. Demons haunted his vision, taunting him. He hid them from his friends and the team, from everyone but…

A sudden center of warmth and order in the chaos. The Doctor caught an impression of black hair, a pretty face, the memory of the smell of her, the memory of a lovely voice murmuring in his ear, the memory of soft skin…

Several doors slammed shut. The Doctor was already hastily backpedaling.

The false memories were easy to spot. He gently untangled and dismissed them, patched together fragments of a few particularly battered true memories. The man had a remarkably strong mind, and willpower that was only slightly less inflexible than cast iron. It was all that had kept him sane; the Doctor could see the struggle the ninja had fought, clawing his way out of the fog of brainwashing time and time again only to be dragged down once more in fear and pain and rage, clinging stubbornly to sanity in the face of hallucinations and confusion and anger and guilt. Refusing to give in, simply because that would mean that Mindbender had _won, _that he'd never be able to set things right, and he could never let that happen.

He mended what he could, soothed what he could, and then withdrew.

"When this is over, we will go find him, you and I." He could hear the cold fury in his own voice; it wasn't the cheerful voice of the Doctor. It was the voice of the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness and Destroyer of Worlds, the man who had destroyed his own race rather than let the universe burn. "And we will stop him from ever hurting anyone else the way he has hurt you. And I will tear that machine apart, and erase any trace it might have left, and any blueprints or research he might have, just so no one else can ever build another one."

"They're gone." Storm Shadow's eyes were still closed. _"Gone. _The memories he put in me. I can't feel them any longer." He opened his eyes at last, and there was profound gratitude there. "Thank you. And I will hold you to that promise."

"You've got a strong mind." The Doctor rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. "One of the strongest I've ever encountered. It's remarkable that you didn't go insane. I removed the last of the false memories that he implanted, though you did a good job of defeating them on your own. I mended what damage I could. Those hallucinations and headaches shouldn't bother you anymore."

"Thank you." Tommy rubbed his temples. "I didn't tell anyone about those. I didn't want…"

"You didn't want anyone to pity you, or think you were weak or damaged." The Doctor stood. "You told her, though." Tommy's eyebrows shot up. "Don't worry; I didn't look. Whoever she is, she'll be more help to you than anyone." A sudden memory of his own surfaced; blonde hair, a bubbly, joyous laugh, an impish grin, the smell of vanilla and strawberries from her shampoo. "Trust me on that. I understand better than you think."

"What happened to her?"

The Doctor recoiled. "_What?"_

Storm Shadow raised his eyebrows. "I'm a ninja. I'm trained to notice things, and you're not as opaque as you think you are. Besides, your mind was in mine. I saw a good deal more than I think you meant me to. You lost someone. A woman. The blonde. And you loved her. The funny thing is that she's not dead, is she?" He frowned. "Not dead…lost. But you love her. If she isn't dead, why haven't you found her again? I saw enough to know that there is very little you can't do if you decide it must be done." He gave the Doctor a narrow-eyed, calculating sort of look. "The Oncoming Storm. That's what your enemies call you. Destroyer of Worlds. I'm an assassin. I've killed a lot of people, including some who didn't deserve it. But you…you've killed _planets._ Entire _species._"

The Doctor was silent for a long moment. "I didn't have a choice." He whispered at last. "They would have destroyed everything. I had to stop them."

"I know. I saw. Where is she?"

"A parallel universe." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "She's not dead. She's happy, even. There was…well, it's complicated. But there's a duplicate of me. Just like me. _Is _me, but half human, with a human heart and a human lifespan."

"A human?" Tommy nodded slightly. "I see."

There was a profound depth of understanding in those four words.

"Yes." The Doctor turned away. "Right. Well. Off you go. I should polish the zyton crystals while I have a chance."

He didn't hear the ninja leave. But when he turned around, the console room was empty. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at his trainers. He'd told the humans a few hours, though that had really been to get a moment alone to speak with Storm Shadow and to give them a chance to rest. Anyway, he had some time before rounding them up and rematerializing the TARDIS.

Just enough time to do some maintenance and have a good mope.


	14. Chapter 14

There were a couple of questions and comments made on previous chapters. As the commenters in question posted as guests, I could not reply to their comments, so am taking the opportunity to answer them here. Everyone else, feel free to skip this bit.

Hillary and Gandalf; you both asked who exactly the Doctor has killed and when exactly he's ever committed genocide, as the Time Lords and Daleks were thrown into a Time Lock, not outright killed. Specific examples are as follows;

The Fourth Doctor destroyed the following species;  
The Osirians (trapped the last member in an inescapable prison and abandoned him to his death)  
The Fendahl (dropped the last members of the species into a supernova)

The Sixth Doctor destroyed the following species;  
The Vervoids (to prevent them from killing all the humans on Hyperion 3).

The Tenth Doctor destroyed the following species;  
The Racnoss (Killed the last queen and all of her thousands of children by drowning them)

These are not counting the deaths the Doctor has caused that did not result in the obliteration of an entire species. If I started listing _those, _this would be an extra six pages long. The new series is not all the Doctor Who there is. There are, in fact, eight other Doctors and twenty-six seasons (plus one movie) more Doctor Who. Watch them.

In addition, I never claimed that the Oncoming Storm was another personality; It's a name that he's earned. The Ninth and Eleventh Doctors even use it to refer to themselves. It was given to him by people who'd seen what he was capable of when he was angry, or simply had decided that something couldn't go on. That's all the Oncoming Storm is; the Doctor, when he's angry.

The Doctor is a good man, and even a hero. But never doubt for a second that he is also a dangerous man; he is, in fact, the most feared single being in all the cosmos, and for a good reason. He can't be bargained with, or stopped. One day he just drops down out of the sky and tears your world apart if he doesn't like it. Many people and species have tried to stop him, and they've all failed.

Oh, and almost all of the Doctors are prone to an occasional "Damn!" or "Hell!" Again, watch the rest of the series.

* * *

*Earlier that morning*

His smaller, sleeker, newer time machine wasn't completed yet, and wouldn't be for another week or so. This did not, however, mean that there was any reason to delay his plans; after all, he had a perfectly serviceable and slightly upgraded time machine already sitting in his lab.

Destro paced back and forth before the Night Creepers. He'd already sent four groups off, and was completing the briefing for this fifth and final one. "Your target will be none other than Storm Shadow; from what I hear, you lot have reason to wish him dead." He smiled at the pained grimaces. "Yes, I know about the incident in Spain. And the incident in Russia. And both incidents in New York. But I believe you will find him a bit more…manageable where I'll be sending you." He smiled. "You'll be going back in time. He'll be about six months old. If he can manage to defeat you then, I've _vastly _overpaid for your services. All of the information you will need is in your packets. You will have two weeks, after which I shall bring you back. Here, only a day or two shall have passed. Any questions?"

"No, sir." The leader of the squad shook his head.

"Most excellent. Now, you may experience some disorientation and nausea after time transport. It's normal, and it will pass. You will come out in an uninhabited area outside of Fresno, California. Everything once you are transported will then be up to you. Are you prepared?"

He didn't wait for a response; he just pressed the button. A flash of energy as the vortex opened and closed in the blink of an eye, and the Night Creepers were gone. Destro nodded in satisfaction and turned to his new machine. He'd just run a bit more of the wiring, and then maybe run a quick test on the coordinate system…

* * *

*Seventeen Hours later, in the Time Vortex*

The whole 'sentient spaceship' thing was going to take some getting used to.

Scarlett and Snake Eyes had been soldiers long enough to know that when you got a chance to get some sleep, you did so. They'd headed in the direction that the Doctor had claimed the bedrooms would be, and had found a room with the door standing invitingly open. Inside, they'd found a king-sized bed and a sword rack on the dresser. They'd both raised their eyebrows at this, but hadn't commented.

Snake Eyes closed the door, removed his mask and the most obvious of his arsenal of pointy things, and preformed his customary new-bed test of flopping down on it and sprawling out. It was Shana who found the bathroom. And oh, but was it a _bathroom. _

Their little bunkroom in the Pit was one of the few to have the luxury of a private bathroom. Normally such accommodations would be reserved for officers, but Snake Eyes had been assigned to it in light of his extensive scarring; even now, Shana was really the only person he was comfortable with unmasked. Still, all their little bathroom had was a shower, a toilet, and a sink. Luxury by military standards, but nothing close to _this. _

_This_ was a room at least three times the size of their tiny bathroom in the Pit, with a large old-fashioned claw foot tub. An assortment of soaps, bath oil, and salts were piled on top of a stack of extremely fluffy blue towels.

She was running a bath about twelve seconds after opening the bathroom door. A couple of minutes later, just as she was pulling her shirt off over her head, Snake Eyes, now down to his boxers and only one semi-forgotten knife still tucked into the top of a sock, wandered in to see what she was doing. He eyed the bathtub, then her. He raised an eyebrow.

She smiled at him and unclasped her bra. "You'll have to be on the bottom."

He grinned.

* * *

Breaker couldn't sleep.

He hadn't had such a problem in years. Not since high school, really. But there'd been so much to learn, and so much code to write, so many systems to build, so much tinkering to do, and if he was being brutally honest so very many video games to play. And then, once he'd found bugs in the programming, so many video games to hack and 'improve'.

But since graduating with a degree in electronic communications and computer engineering, he'd learned the values of a good solid eight hours. Mostly because he'd joined the Army, and if there was one thing you learned in the Army, it was that morning PT really, really sucked if you'd only gotten two hours of sleep the night before.

It had been a rude transition. Breaker had been accustomed to going to bed at 4 AM, not _waking up _at 4 AM, which seemed to be the favorite time of day for every drill instructor ever born. Particularly Beachhead.

Breaker still wasn't entirely sure that Beachhead had _been _born. He had always rather imagined the Sergeant Major emerging fully formed from a growth chamber in some secret lab at Fort Benning, scowl and ball-shriveling bellow fully functional and balaclava and tac vest intact.

Anyway, he hadn't (often) stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for years. (Did this count as staying up until the wee hours? Breaker wasn't sure. How did one tell time of day on a time-travelling spaceship hanging out in the Time Vortex?) Still, how could _anyone _sleep when they were on this magnificent ship? Breaker had been wandering for an hour and a half, and still hadn't seen the same corridor twice.

Once he'd started worrying about getting lost. The next turn of the corridor had led him back to the console room. Breaker had stood there eyeing the control console for a good five minutes, just staring.

Sentient ship. Right.

He could have _sworn _that he'd sensed a bit of _pleasedsmugoohi'mclever _from the control console. After that, he hadn't worried so much about getting lost.

He came to a fork in the corridors. He chose the left passage on a whim, and opened the first door he came to. It was a squash court. So were the next two doors.

The fourth was already open a crack. Light spilled into the hallway, buttery and warm as sunlight. He caught a whiff of grass and warm air. Curious, he pushed the door open.

He blinked.

It was…well, it _appeared _to be another world. A grassy plain stretched away, knee-high grass of a deep scarlet red waving gently in the breeze. Small white flowers grew here and there, and off thirty or so feet before him and to his left a little grove of trees grew, the trunks smooth and grey and the leaves gleaming silver. Insects hummed in the grass, including something that looked amazingly like a normal Earth honeybee. Birds-or things a bit like birds, anyway-twittered happily in the trees. Two suns shone in the burnt orange sky; everything cast odd double shadows. Around them, the world appeared to go on forever; far off in front of them, blue with distance, mountains rose. Breaker could see the gleaming of something that _appeared _to be an enormous glass dome nestled miles off in the foothills.

Breaker stared. It was like something straight off the cover of one of the pulp science fiction storied he'd loved as a child (and still loved, for that matter.) A great glass (or something that _looked _like glass, anyways) dome sparkled under the light of the twin suns, covering an entire _city._

He stared across the plain at the great glass city on another world, or at least a simulacrum of one, and experienced no less than twelve simultaneous flashbacks to the _John Carter of Mars _books. Though the Doctor didn't look particularly red and was wearing a good deal more clothing than the Martians in those books, and there didn't seem to be any stunningly beautiful women wearing little more than artfully placed chains lounging about. He experienced only the briefest pang of disappointment over this last fact; he was too busy trying to figure out how all of this was possible.

_Advanced holographic technology. The vegetation and bees are real enough…some sort of greenhouse or park or whatever you call a meadow on a spaceship…but the holographics give the illusion of distance. Oh, but that's so beautiful! A seamless blending of technology and reality. Look at the rendering! That's perfect! They even got the bluing from atmospheric scatter down! The perspective is flawless!_

There was someone sitting under one of the trees in the little grove. A tall, skinny man with messy hair and a jacket that was far too heavy for the warm air. He was staring out at the distant mountains and city; his back was to Breaker, but the slump of his shoulders still managed to convey an air of abject dejection.

Breaker started to edge backwards. A twig cracked under his heel.

The Time Lord straightened up and twisted around. Breaker tried to look apologetic. "Sorry! Didn't mean to interrupt. I was just wandering around and this door was open. Leaving now."

The Doctor shook his head, and to Breaker's surprise, smiled. "Don't worry about it. The TARDIS must have thought I needed company; I know I shut that door." He patted the grass affectionately and looked back at the distant glass city. "She'll never admit it, but she mothers me sometimes."

Breaker moved closer to peer at the bark on one of the trees. It looked very much like the smooth grey bark on young ash trees. "Still. I didn't mean to intrude." He eyed the strange alien man who looked so human, and noted the wistful sort of sadness about the Doctor as he ran the scarlet grass through his fingers.

A flash of rare human…well, _life-form…_related insight. Breaker often had flashes of insight regarding circuit systems and code lines, but people were much harder to figure out. "This is your planet, isn't it? Or it looks like it. What is it, like a greenhouse? A few hundred square meters of real planting with holographic walls to mimic distance?"

The Doctor twisted around and eyed him appraisingly, moodiness apparently forgotten. "Oh, you _are _clever, aren't you?"

"How do you water it?" Breaker was poking at the grass now. The dirt the grass and trees were growing in appeared to be ordinary dirt. "Is there like an irrigation system underneath the soil?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "No. It rains."

"_…INSIDE?"_

"Yep." The Doctor smiled, but the smile faded after a moment and he looked back out at the distant mountains. "On Gallifrey, I used to sit outside and when it stormed. I liked watching the lightning. I used to dream about how much _more _there was, beyond Gallifrey and the Time Lords." He stared moodily out over the crimson grass at the distant city.

Breaker was very, very smart. This intellect usually applied better to computers and mathematics than it did to humans; he liked computers because they did exactly what you told them to. No more, no less, just exactly as they were told. Sometimes a few programs conflicted and they did things you didn't expect, but no computer could operate outside its programming. Math and computers were logical and made _sense. _Even when a computer wasn't working, it was usually because of a conflict or glitch in its programming that could be fixed once it was identified, which traditionally was a process assisted by large quantities of caffeinated beverages and cursing.

(Breaker had a private stash of Jolt cola precisely for this purpose. If another member of the IT team managed to impress him highly enough, they might be granted the supreme honor of enjoying a Jolt from Breaker's minifridge.)

Humans were different. Humans were complicated and spontaneous and did things because, hey, they _could._ You couldn't program humans for optimal behavior, even though Cobra had tried. Breaker had a far more difficult time understanding humans than computers; humans never made _sense. _You couldn't reduce a human to a simple series of yes/no commands, and no human he'd ever met had the equivalent of control-alt-delete keys or an on/off switch to press when they weren't being cooperative.

Still, he was exceptionally intelligent, and now his neurons fired up again. Pieces fell into place. This huge, wonderful ship, with only one pilot. The sadness he saw when the cheerful exterior faltered. The little hints, the sense of loneliness, the true the reason why this strange man had been willing to have them come with him. This room. All of it clicked into place, and he just _knew._

He was standing in the last echo of a lost world, before the last member of an endangered species. A little piece of his lost home that this strange man called the Doctor carried with him, just so he could come here and remember.

"It's gone, isn't it?" He asked. "Gallifrey."

A pause. "Too clever by half, you are."

Breaker sank down into a sitting position, his back propped against another one of the silver trees. "What happened? If you don't mind talking about it. I mean, I'm a soldier. I understand if you don't want to talk about…you know…things."

"A war." The Doctor's tone had gone dark; there was pain there, and regret, loss and loneliness and longing, all rolled up into two little single syllable words. "We lost. Gallifrey burned. I stopped the Daleks, but I couldn't save Gallifrey. I didn't even think I'd be able to save _myself._ But I lived. Just me. No one else."

"But…" Breaker paused. The Doctor was staring off into space again. "Well…this ship. Your people. You're so far beyond us. Your weapons tech…"

"Time Lords weren't warriors." The Doctor shook his head. "Violence and destruction aren't natural things for Time Lords; our last war on Gallifrey was tens of millions of years ago. Our weapons tech was centuries behind that of other planets. Except for a few renegades, Time Lords didn't interfere with other races, and didn't lower themselves to anything so base and petty as war. We learned, but not fast enough, and Gallifrey burned with Skaro and the Daleks. I wanted to save them. I _tried _to save them. But they wouldn't listen, and in the end I had to stop it before the whole universe burned."

Breaker stared. "Stop it? As in the _whole war?"_

"Yes."

"Just _you?"_

"Just me."

"But you're…" Breaker waved a hand, taking in the wild hair, the skinny build, the suit and the trainers and the distinct lack of anything that looked threatening. "_One guy._ And you stopped a _war?_ _How?"_

"I threw Gallifrey and Skaro into a Time Lock." The Doctor looked hard at him, eyes glittering. "All of the Time Lords, and all of the Daleks. The Nightmare Child. The ruins of Arcadia. All of it. I locked them all outside of Time itself, trapped in the final moment of the Time War to burn forever. I sealed them off, outside of Time and space as we know it, so that they can never escape. I did it because otherwise the Time War would have destroyed _everything, _and every living thing in the universe would have burned. I had to choose, you see; my people, or everything that was and could ever be."

Breaker stared. "So…this planet…"

"Yes." The Doctor sighed, a sad, tired sort of sigh. "I destroyed it. I didn't have a choice; I tried everything else, but they wouldn't _listen."_

Breaker stared at the man sitting in the red grass, talking about stopping an interstellar war and throwing entire planets outside of time single-handedly. It occurred to him that the between the skinny build, the suit, and the sneakers Doctor looked like nothing so much as a junior partner in a law firm. He certainly didn't look dangerous.

Then he remembered the look on the Doctor's face when Destro had ordered the vipers to take them into custody. He didn't look dangerous. Except when, sometimes, he _did. _

_Violence and destruction aren't natural things for Time Lords…except for a few renegades. _

"You do the same sort of thing as us, really." Breaker said at last. "Don't you? You see bad things happening, and so you stop them. No matter the cost, because they have to be stopped, and you're the only one who can. Even if you have to risk everything. Except _you _do it on a cosmic scale. _How? _You don't use weapons. You _talk."_

"You forgot the running and fiddling with things." The Doctor grinned again at last. "See, I don't know if you've realized it yet, but I'm sort of brilliant. Certified genius. Not to make you feel bad, but you're a genius yourself, and I'm so much cleverer than you that it's like comparing a rhesus monkey to Albert Einstein…who was a very clever man and never did figure out the equations for faster than light travel. I told him that he couldn't, not given what he had to build on in his time, but he was a stubborn bloke. Twentieth century physicists for you; never take 'no, you can't' for an answer. Had to go and try. He _did _figure out relativity and teleportation and was making good inroads on the equations governing quantum tunneling, but he died before he could hit on faster than light travel. So he still owes me a steak dinner."

Breaker blinked. "Albert Einstein never figured out teleportation."

The Doctor grinned knowingly, seemingly utterly distracted from his gloomy mood of four minutes ago. He was a bit like Storm Shadow that way, Breaker thought. Both the ninja and the Doctor could swing wildly from one end of the mood spectrum to the other in the span of about three seconds. "Says who? History books?" He shook his head sadly. "You never want to trust those. They always get bits wrong. I mean, they all say that Elvis is _dead._"

"You. Ended a war. _Single handedly."_ Breaker paused for a moment. "And Albert Einstein invented _teleportation."_ A heartbeat passed as what the Doctor had just said sank in. "Wait…Elvis _isn't _dead?"

"I've ended lots of wars." The Doctor ignored him. "It's remarkable what you can accomplish by being a bit clever, really. Along with a bit of running. Or a lot of running." He stared up at the sky contemplatively. "Well…More usually with quite a lot of running."

Breaker nodded sympathetically. All of the Joe's plans tended to involve rather a lot of running too, even if they weren't supposed to at first.

The Doctor seemed to be settling into a topic now; he'd perked up, and was back to his normal cheerful, talkative self. "You know, I've never in all my nine hundred years met a race as prone to trouble as you humans. Other species can manage to colonize other planets and establish galactic empires without me saving them four times a year, but you lot attract trouble like a magnet. And whatever the trouble, it _always _seems to take a lot of running to solve it." He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I've saved other races and planets too, but usually not repeatedly. I've saved you lot, oh, six hundred and eleven times now. And ninety percent of the time, it involved running away from people and things trying to kill me horribly."

"You know, I always thought those UFO people were completely off their rockers." Breaker shook his head. "So I guess we don't manage to kill ourselves off, then?"

The Doctor grinned. "_Well..._most of them _are _nutters. No species I know of that comes all the way to earth just to dissect some cattle and pick up a few poor farmers to torment. Mind you, in all the universe, there's _nothing _that goes with cookies quite like cow milk. It _has _to be a cow, and it can't be replicated. It just doesn't taste the same. And steak! Got to appriciate a planet that can invent steak and chips. But you don't need to dissect a cow to get that; you can just pop by the market like any of the locals.'

'And oh, no. Two thousand years from now, humans will have an empire spanning the Milky Way. Three thousand years from now, they'll have spread to all of the Milky Way's sattilite galaxies and to the Andromeda Galaxy too. You'll fight Cybermen and Daleks. You'll unravel the secrets of black holes and surf the stars on the shock waves of supernovas. The Time Lords always looked down on you, but really you're a better lot than we ever were. You humans will be around until the end of the universe. Indomitable. That's what you lot are. No matter the odds, no matter what problems get thrown at you, you just don't have it in you to give up." His smile widened.

Breaker contemplated that for a few minutes. "Thanks."

"For what?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows, apparently puzzled.

"Letting me know it's all worth it." Breaker shrugged. "I risk my life for my country...and my planet. We all do, in G.I. Joe. But we can only do so much, you know? Sure, if there's a threat of nuclear war we can go in and save America and the world, but we can't do much for bigger stuff. I mean, you hear people talking all the time about killer asteroids and flu viruses that could kill us all and giant solar storms and that sort of thing. People die easily. We know that better than most. But you're saying we _don't _die. And that's nice to know." He was quiet for a second. "Why tell me all of this?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I like you. You're clever. Far too clever for what you do, really. You could be a millionaire, but you're in the Army instead."

Breaker shrugged again. "The money doesn't matter. There are more important things."

The Doctor's grin widened. "And that right there is why I like you. Now go on. Get some rest. You humans need so much sleep; I don't know how you ever get anything done when you spend a third of your time unconscious."


	15. Chapter 15

Chhlll'kti was dead.

Klk'hit, Lord Commander of the Thillani Time Fleet, stared at the holofilm readout that his cheif medical officer had just sent up to the control bridge. The tiny image of the chief medic, rendered greenish by the holo, floated in the air just over Klk'hit's data disc.

"...All life signs terminated at exactly fourteen twenty three Universal standard time. Agent appears to have ingested his suicide pill, suggesting that he was compromised and ended his life rather than surrender information, as is proper. End of medical report."

Klk'hit shut down the holo. Chhll'kti had been one of his best, a soldier blooded a dozen times over. Like Klk'hit, he'd survived the destruction of the first Time Fleet at the hands of the Travelling Man. Klk'hit had trusted him; it was why he'd assigned him to the infiltration mission.

And now he was dead, and the Travelling Man was poking his nose into things. And if there was one thing that you learned after you'd once run up against the Travelling Man, it was that if you were wise, you _didn't _go up against the Travelling Man.

The Doctor. His name was written across the stars, across all of Time itself. It was rumored that he was the only being in all of creation that the dreaded Daleks truly feared. Trying to fight him was an exercise in frustration; he was, to use a native expression, as slippery as an eel and far too clever for his own good. Just when you thought you had him, he'd smile and then suddenly you'd realize that you'd played right into his hands. The next thing you knew, your world would be falling apart around you and your ships burning in the sky and there wouldn't be a thing you could do to stop it, and then, to make it _worse, _he'd have the incredible gall to _apologize _for it all.

"Raise shields to maximum." He ordered. He didn't know if it would actually do any good; the Time Lords had always guarded their technology jealously, and no one except the Doctor himself really knew what that blue box of his was capable of. "Raise crew to battle alert."

His orders were carried out immediately and without question. His crew had served under him for many years. Some...not many, but some...had served with him on the _Vanquisher, _one of the first Time Ships. The _Vanquisher _had been one of the ships destroyed by the Doctor and his companions; Klk'hit and less than forty of his crew had been fortunate enough to reach the escape pods in time.

Klk'hit looked at the viewscreen. It wasn't a true window; the control bridge was buried deep in the heart of the ship, below layer upon layer of shielding and hull metal . The view on the screen was simply an image transmitted down to the holofilm wall. On the screen, the roiling plasma fire of the star Sol churned. Arcing loops of stellar fire the size of planets arced away from the surface, only to break apart and fall back into the blazing body of the star.

It reminded him of home. Stars were as individual as the planets and life forms that orbited them. Klk'hit had been to a hundred star systems since being recruited to the military as a hatchling, after an aptitude scan had showed that he had promise as a tactician. In nearly all, the star was too red, or too white, or too old, or too small, or too large. Sol, however, was nearly of a size, color, and age with Tlk'it, the star that his native planet of the same name orbited.

He hadn't seen Tlk'it in ten standard years. He had a mate there, a beautiful mate who'd just laid a clutch of eggs when he'd been deployed. She sent holos; he had four daughters and five sons. Their pictures covered every available surface in his private quarters. They'd just taken the aptitude tests. Two of his sons had been assigned to military service.

He should be proud of that. He would have been proud of that, once. Before the war against the humans, and before he'd met the Travelling Man. And now he looked at holos of the planet Earth, and knew that he would be expected to burn it to bedrock. It looked so serene, a world of blue water and white clouds, so similar to Tlk'it. He looked at it, and thought in his heart of hearts that the people who lived there had as much right to live and spread as any race did. He thought this, and thought of what he must do, and he toyed for a moment with the idea of turning his ships around and taking them home and telling the Empress that if she wanted someone to commit genocide, she could go do it herself.

The Travelling Man could have killed every last Thillani on the Time Ships. He could have done it at any time; that had become painfully obvious later. But he hadn't. He'd pleaded and warned and cajoled and begged them to give it up, to turn around. He'd spun a tale of a war fought for the sake of war, and the terrible costs, and the death of two races, and the terrible pointlessness of it all.

They'd ignored him. And the Time Ships had burned. But even then, the Doctor had given them time. He'd given them time. He'd warned them, and some of them had been able to escape. And as his escape pod had been spinning through hyperspace, homing in on Tlk'it, Klk'hit had thought. Thought of how the army he served was wrong, and how they'd brought this on themselves. The Doctor had only been the instrument of the wrath of the gods; the Thillani had sought to set themselves above the gods themselves, and the gods had sent the Travelling Man to punish them.

Such thoughts must always stay private, though. Because he had a mate and nine children, and if he died with honor in the service of the Empire they would never want for anything so long as they lived. But if one word that could be construed as treason was ever heard from him, they would be forced to watch as he was stoned to death and his remains burned in the fires of the High Temple, to send him to the gods for judgment.

He would die before that happened. He would burn a thousand worlds before he would make his children watch such a thing.

He looked at the fire of the yellow star named Sol. _I'm sorry. _He thought. _I'm sorry. For the humans, if we win. And I'm sorry for us, whether or not we win. If the Travelling Man comes, I will fight him with everything I have. I will fight to fulfill my mission until my last breath, and if I die I will die with honor, and my mate and children will never want, and will remember me as a man to be proud of. _

_I'm sorry for the Travelling Man, if he has to kill all of us._

_ I hope he does. _


End file.
